Patent ID: 7343552
Filing Date: 2008-03-11
Classification: G06F

Abstract:
1. A method to support freeform annotations, comprising: (a) reading and displaying a portion of a digital document on a screen based on one or more display properties of the screen; (b) accepting one or more freeform annotations on the displayed portion of the digital document via one or more input devices; (c) categorizing a first annotation from the one or more freeform annotations where the first categorized annotation is an anchor, wherein the anchor intersects a word or an image in the digital document; (d) categorizing a second annotation where the second categorized annotation is selected from the group consisting of a second anchor type and a comment type, wherein the second anchor intersects a word or an image in the digital document and wherein the comment does not intersect a word or an image in the digital document; (e) repeating step (d) to generate a class of annotations where each categorized annotation from step (d) is a member of the class of annotations, until a categorized annotation is categorized as the second anchor type; (f) categorizing a further annotation where the further categorized annotation is selected from the group consisting of anchor types, comment types and connector types, wherein the anchor type intersects a word or an image in the digital document, wherein the comment does not intersect a word or an image in the digital document; wherein the connector type connects two anchor types, wherein a first connector connects two anchors; (g) repeating step (f) and thereby categorizing the one or more freeform annotations via a completely deterministic state machine; and (h) indicating to the user the outcome of the processing of the one or more free-form annotations.