Patent Document ID: 7913191
Application ID: 11681908

Base Claim:
1. Apparatus which provides a common input/output interface to a plurality of application programs, comprising: a processing unit; and a computer readable storage medium including computer usable program code configured to be executed by the processing unit, the computer usable program code having, a document converting section which converts a plurality of objects contained in an application-specific document generated by each of the plurality of application programs and represented in a data structure specific to the application program to a common document represented in a common data structure that is to represent the objects as nodes of a tree structure; a structure converting section which, if at least one attribute of each of the plurality of objects contained in the common document with which the object is to be displayed by a relevant application program satisfies a condition predetermined for at least one predetermined data structure selected between a predetermined table structure and a predetermined list structure, assigns each of the plurality of objects to a node of the predetermined data structure that satisfies the condition to convert the data structure of the common document; an output section which presents the common document to a user in a common window and outputs text contained in the common document to a text reader capable of reading text aloud; an input section which inputs an operation performed by the user on the common document in the common window; an interface adapter section which converts an object contained in the common document to an object used in the output section; a modifying section which modifies the common document in accordance with the operation by the user; and a modification reflecting section which reflects a modification to the common document in the application-specific document, wherein the modification is to correspond to the operation by the user.

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Claim 4:
4. The apparatus according to claim 1 , further comprising an interface conversion rule storing section in which a conversion rule is described for converting each object in the common data structure contained in the common document to an object in a data structure used in the output section, wherein if a conversion rule for an object used in the output section is stored in the interface conversion rule storing section, the interface adapter section converts the object in the common data structure contained in the common document to an object used in the output section in accordance with the conversion rule.