Patent ID: 6904564

Claim:
A computerized method of summarizing a text, comprising the steps of: (a) receiving the text, where the text includes at least one set of textual units, where each set of textual units includes at least one textual unit; (b) identifying all of the textual units in the text; (c) selecting a first set of textual units from the text; (d) selecting a second set of textual units from the text; (e) identifying each unique textual unit in the first set of textual units; (f) identifying each unique textual unit in the second set of textual units; (g) determining how many textual units are shared-between the first set of textual units and the second set of textual units; (h) selecting a third set of textual units from the text, where the third set of textual units is between a first textual unit of the first set of textual units and a last textual unit of the second set of textual units; (i) identifying each unique textual unit in the third set of textual units; (j) identifying each unique textual unit in the text; (k) determining the frequency of occurrence of each unique textual unit in the third set of textual units; (l) determining the frequency of occurrence of each unique textual unit in the text; (m) determining the proximity of the results of step (k) and step (l); (n) calculating a score for the first set of textual units with respect to the second set of textual units as a function of the results of step (g) and step (m); (o) returning to step (d) if additional processing is desired, otherwise, proceeding to step (p); (p) assigning the highest scoring result of step (n) to the first set of textual units; (q) returning to step (c) if additional processing is desired, otherwise, proceeding to step (r); and (r) selecting a user-definable number of first sets of textual units selected in step (c) according to the scores assigned thereto as the summary of the text.