Creating and maintaining hypertext links among heterogeneous documents by the establishment of anchors and connections among anchors
US5809317A · kind A · utility
Assignee
Inventors
Key dates
| Filing date | Jun 5, 1997 |
| Grant date | Sep 15, 1998 |
| Priority date | — |
| Expiry date | Jun 5, 2017 |
Classification
- Technology area (CPC G)Physics
- CPC primaryG06F16/94
- WIPO fieldComputer technology
- WIPO sectorElectrical engineering
Abstract
A method and apparatus for relating (called hyperlinking) a region of one document to one or more regions of other documents. This is provided by using a mechanism for linking and embedding objects to establish the endpoints of the hyperlinks (called anchors) together with the creation of intermediate tables which maintain information about relations between regions of documents and attributes of the relationship. When a user selects a region in a document which participates in a relationship, a database program is invoked which displays information about related regions in other documents which may be accessed through the intermediate tables. An auxiliary table maintains information about attributes which may be custom designed by the user, such as author, date of creation, etc. The intermediate tables allow relationships among multiple regions of documents created by different applications. Relationships are bidirectional in that the user can traverse from any region in a document to any other region in the same relationship.
Source: USPTO / EPO open patent data. Objective bibliographic and citation counts.