Patent Document ID: 9412070
Application ID: 14050577

Base Claim:
1. A method for automatically deriving a context of a business rule when inferring the business rule from an information source, the method comprising: a processor of a computer system inferring the business rule as a function of a first element of information comprised by a first information source; the processor identifying a next element of information that is associated with a first context of the first element of information, wherein the first context associates the first element with a first context-dependent characteristic of the first element, and wherein the next element of information is comprised by a next information source that is distinct from the first information source; the processor modifying the business rule as a function of the next element of information; the processor attempting to recognize a further element of information that is associated with a next context of the next element of information, wherein the next context associates the next element with a next context-dependent characteristic of the next element, and wherein the further element of information is comprised by a further information source that is distinct from the first information source; the processor, if successfully recognizing the further element of information, updating the business rule as a function of the further element of information; and the processor iteratively repeating the attempting to recognize and the updating until the processor fails to recognize the further element, where the processor in each iteration initially resets values of the next element and the next information source respectively to those of the further element and the further information source that had been recognized by the processor in the previous iteration, and where the processor in each iteration attempts to recognize new values of the next context, the next context-dependent characteristic, the further element, and the further information source as functions of the reset values of the next element and the next information source.

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Claim 5:
5. The method of claim 1 , wherein the first information source comprises a first set of computer-program instructions, the first element of information comprises a first subset of the first set of computer-program instructions, and the first context identifies an association selected from the group comprising: an association between a context-dependent characteristic of the business rule and an element of information comprised by the first information source; an association between a context-dependent characteristic of the business rule and an element of data that is directly or indirectly processed by the business rule; an association between a context-dependent characteristic of the business rule and a schedule that is associated with the time or frequency of performance of the business rule; an association between a context-dependent characteristic of the business rule and a description of a business function; and an association between a context-dependent characteristic of the business rule and an element of information comprised by an extrinsic information source that determines the time, platform, or manner of performance of the business rule.