{
  "patent_number": "US 5946647",
  "country": "US",
  "title": "How Computers Automatically Detect and Act on Data Like Phone Numbers",
  "original_title": "System and method for performing an action on a structure in computer-generated data",
  "summary": "Apple's 1999 patent describing how software can automatically recognize patterns like phone numbers or dates in text and offer relevant actions like calling or scheduling.",
  "what_it_does": "This patent describes a system that scans text in real-time to identify specific structures, such as email addresses, dates, or phone numbers. Once identified, the system highlights these items and provides a menu of relevant actions, like opening a calendar or dialing a number. It uses an analyzer server that works alongside other applications to parse data and link it to specific functional tasks. For example, if you receive an email containing a date, the system recognizes the date structure and lets you click it to immediately create a calendar event.",
  "what_it_does_not_cover": [
    "Does not cover manual selection of text where the computer performs no automated pattern recognition.",
    "Does not cover data structures that are not defined by grammars or string libraries within the system.",
    "Does not cover actions that are not explicitly linked to a detected structure by the analyzer server."
  ],
  "filed": "1996-02-01",
  "granted": "1999-08-31",
  "expires": "2016-02-01",
  "status": "expired",
  "holder": "Apple Computer Inc",
  "holder_url": "https://patentbrief.org/company/apple-computer-inc",
  "inventors": [
    {
      "name": "James R. Miller",
      "url": "https://patentbrief.org/inventor/james-r-miller"
    },
    {
      "name": "Bonnie Nardi",
      "url": "https://patentbrief.org/inventor/bonnie-nardi"
    },
    {
      "name": "David Wright",
      "url": "https://patentbrief.org/inventor/david-wright"
    },
    {
      "name": "Thomas Bonura",
      "url": "https://patentbrief.org/inventor/thomas-bonura"
    }
  ],
  "times_cited": 297,
  "tags": [
    "software",
    "consumer_electronics"
  ],
  "abstract": "A system and method causes a computer to detect and perform actions on structures identified in computer data. The system provides an analyzer server, an application program interface, a user interface and an action processor. The analyzer server receives from an application running concurrently data having recognizable structures, uses a pattern analysis unit, such as a parser or fast string search function, to detect structures in the data, and links relevant actions to the detected structures. The application program interface communicates with the application running concurrently, and transmits relevant information to the user interface. Thus, the user interface can present and enable selection of the detected structures, and upon selection of a detected structure, present the linked candidate actions. Upon selection of an action, the action processor performs the action on the detected structure.",
  "url": "https://patentbrief.org/patent/us/5946647/system-and-method-for-performing-an-action-on-a-structure-in-computer-generated-data",
  "markdown_url": "https://patentbrief.org/patent/us/5946647/system-and-method-for-performing-an-action-on-a-structure-in-computer-generated-data/md",
  "google_patents_url": "https://patents.google.com/patent/US5946647",
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}