Patent ID: 8442923

Claim:
A method of automatically training an electronic document sorter with a computing system comprising: a) identifying a first set of electronic documents containing content associated with a set of topics using the computing system; wherein said content describes one or more events related to one or more topics; b) analyzing said first set of electronic documents to identify first temporal components for each of said one or more events and one or more topics; wherein said first temporal components include content other than but not excluding date/time data specified for said first set of electronic documents, including text words and semantic equivalents of such text words; c) assigning a first set of corresponding temporal scores to said first set of electronic documents based on analyzing said first temporal components, said first set of temporal scores representing a first set of chronological states of said one or more events for said one or more topics described in said first set of documents, wherein said first set of corresponding temporal scores are provided by automated and/or human based input scoring; d) training an automated document classifier using said temporal components; wherein the automated document classifier is adapted by such training to classify and assign a second temporal score to an unclassified electronic document containing content associated with the first event related to a first topic based on temporal characteristics analyzed for such unclassified electronic document, including second content other than but not excluding second date/time data including second text words and second semantic equivalents thereof representing a second set of temporal components contained in such unclassified document; wherein said unclassified document is ordered in time relative to said first set of documents with respect to at least said first event based on said second temporal score.