Corporate disclosure and repository system utilizing inference synthesis as applied to a database

Abstract

A corporate disclosure and repository system includes one or more software programs which execute on one or more general purpose data processing systems. The software programs include components for gathering information in the form of free form text documents, reducing the information to a formatted database, analyzing the contents of the database and reorganizing the database in a format suitable for drawing inferences with respect to the contents thereof and synthesizing inferences based upon the contents of the reorganized database. The software programs may be used both intracompany, in preparing documents for deposit in the repository system, and intercompany, in reviewing documents already deposited in the repository system. The intercompany part may be further divided into parts useful to regulators and parts useful to the public. The principle difference between the various parts is in certain knowledge and rules applied in the analysis and reorganization stages, since the various users of the system have different goals at those stages.

Claims

What is claimed is:

1. A software system for producing the inferences in a specialized field, the software system fixed in a machine-readable medium, and the software system comprising:

synthesis software tools when executed by a processor receive documents including freely formatted text documents and which produce a formatted database of information from the freely formatted text documents, the synthesis software tools relating instances to concepts, an instance which can be associated with plural concepts being related to a single concept with reference to a context in which the instance appears; and

analysis software tools which when executed by a processor receive the formatted database, fill portions of a template of predefined relationships between different concepts, the predefined relationships being relevant to inferences in the specialized field, cluster the filled portions of the template of predefined relationships according to a similarity index computed between the filled portions of the template of predefined relationships when the similarity index exceeds a threshold value to form a grouped database, draw inferences from the grouped database and produce an analysis output containing the inferences, wherein the analysis software tools comprise a diagonalization tool which forms the grouped database in which each cluster of topics having the similarity index exceeding the threshold value is a group.

2. A software system as defined in claim 1, the synthesis tools further comprising:

a concept dictionary relating a concept word root, a context word root and an instance word root;

a parser which receives the documents and which produces a plurality of words contained in the documents;

a rooter which receives the words parsed by the parser and which produces corresponding word roots for the words received; and

a contexter which receives the concept dictionary and the word roots and which identifies a concept corresponding to each word root on the basis of the word roots received.

3. A software system as defined in claim 2, wherein the word roots include a word root defining context, and one or more word roots associated with the context, the contexter further comprising:

a context recognizer which identifies in the concept dictionary all concepts having word roots associated with the context; and

an instance recognizer which identifies in the concept dictionary all concepts previously identified by the context recognizer which also include an instance word root matching the word root.

4. A software system as defined in claim 1, the analysis tools further comprising:

an inferencer which receives the groups from the grouped database and which produces an inferenced database in which inferences are drawn on the basis of information present in and absent from the groups.

5. A software system as defined in claim 1, the analysis tools further comprising;

a catalog defining each database entry as one of either required or optional.

6. The software system of claim 1, wherein the specialized field is corporate financial information disclosure.

7. A software system as defined in claim 6, the synthesis tools further comprising:

a concept dictionary relating a concept word root, a context word root and an instance word root;

a parser which receives the documents and which produces a plurality of words contained in the documents;

a rooter which receives the words parsed by the parser and which produces corresponding word roots for the words received; and

a contexter which receives the concept dictionary and the word roots and which identifies a concept corresponding to each word root on the basis of the word roots received.

8. A software system as defined in claim 6, wherein the word roots include a word root defining context, and one or more word roots associated with the context, the contexter further comprising:

a context recognizer which identifies in the concept dictionary all concepts having word roots associated with the context; and

an instance recognizer which identifies in the concept dictionary all concepts previously identified by the context recognizer which also include an instance word root matching the word root.

9. A software system as defined in claim 6, the analysis tools further comprising:

a catalog defining each database entry as one of either required or optional.

10. A software system as defined in claim 6, the analysis tools further comprising:

an inferencer which receives the groups from the grouped database and which produces an inferenced database in which inferences are drawn on the basis of information present in and absent from the groups.

Description

BACKGROUND

1. Field of the Invention

The present invention generally relates to software systems for gathering, storing, and retrieving data. The invention more specifically relates to such software systems wherein the data is text based. Yet more specifically, the invention relates to systems for gathering, storing and retrieving corporate disclosure information.

2. Related Art

The current practice for the gathering, storage, analysis and retrieval of data concerning corporate disclosures revolves around the Electronic Data Gathering, Analysis and Retrieval (EDGAR.RTM.) system of the U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC). EDGAR performs automated collection, validation, indexing, acceptance and forwarding of submissions made by companies and others who are required by law to file various documents with the SEC. The primary purpose of EDGAR is to increase the efficiency and fairness of the securities market for the benefit of investors, corporations and the economy as a whole by accelerating the receipt, acceptance, dissemination and analysis of time sensitive corporate information filed with the SEC.

The success of a system such as EDGAR in accomplishing the SEC's goals depends to some extent on whether all required submissions are, or even can be, filed using the system. The success also depends on the ease with which output reports may be generated and the variety and nature of the inquiries which may be made to generate reports using the system. Finally, success of the system will depend on the ease with which accurate submissions, referred to as disclosure documents, may be drafted by those companies and persons required to do so.

In order to ensure that all the data required by the SEC is collected, and further to ensure that this data is searchable, once entered into the EDGAR system, the SEC requires that EDGAR filings be done using standard forms. A list of the standard forms presently accepted for EDGAR filing is included in Appendix A. The dramatic proliferation of form types illustrated by Appendix A is a result of requiring filings to be rigidly standardized. A standard form or variant must be created for every conceivable situation.

Presently, an individual preparing a disclosure document for filing uses a general purpose word processor to create one of the form types accepted for electronic filing. The completed form is filed using an electronic mail system (E-MAIL). However, the EDGAR system provides no methods or processes for companies to uniformly perform quality control, tracking, analysis or process support while preparing a document for filing. The failure to control this part of the filing process can have serious consequences because the EDGAR system permits only the submission of disclosure documents, not the amendment or alteration of disclosure documents.

Since statute and regulation require a large number of filings from a large number of entities, the EDGAR database has grown to enormous proportions. As a result of the size of the EDGAR database, and as a consequence of inconsistencies with respect to how different entities report similar matters, it is inherently intractable to analyze the EDGAR data in a meaningful way. Basic text searches can be performed, but meaningful data reduction is substantially hampered by inconsistencies and by the variety of reporting forms used to report similar information.

SUMMARY OF THE INVENTION

The various problems of the conventional corporate disclosure and repository system discussed above and such other problems as will now be evident to those skilled in this art are overcome by the present invention in which there is provided a software system for collecting corporate disclosure information in a free text form, generating a database of disclosure information and analyzing the database of disclosure information.

A software system according to some aspects of the present invention may be fixed in a machine-readable medium. The software system may include synthesis software tools which receive documents including freely formatted text documents and which produce a formatted database of information from the freely formatted text documents; and analysis software tools which receive the formatted database and which produce an analysis output. Variations on this system are possible. For example, the synthesis tools may further include a concept dictionary relating a concept word root, a context word root and an instance word root; a parser which receives the documents and which produces a plurality of words contained in the documents; a rooter which receives the words parsed by the parser and which produces corresponding word roots for the words received; and a contexter which receives the concept dictionary and the word roots and which identifies a concept corresponding to each word root on the basis of the word roots received. Also in accordance with this variation, the word roots may include a target word root and proximate word roots identified by the parser to have originated at a location in the document proximate the target word root. In that case, the contexter may further include a context recognizer which identifies in the concept dictionary all concepts having context word roots matching proximate word roots; and an instance recognizer which identifies in the concept dictionary all concepts previously identified by the context recognizer which also include an instance word root matching the target word root. The analysis tools may further include a diagonalization tool which receives the formatted database and rearranges the formatted database to cluster similar topics together forming a grouped database in which each cluster of similar topics is a group; or a catalog defining each database entry as one of either required or optional. When a grouped database is produced, the analysis tools may further include an inferencer which receives the groups from the grouped database and which produces an inferenced database in which inferences are drawn on the basis of information present in and absent from the groups.

BRIEF DESCRIPTION OF THE DRAWINGS

In the drawings, in which like reference designations indicate like elements:

FIG. 1 is a block diagram of a data processing system suitable for operating software embodying aspects of the invention;

FIG. 2 is a block diagram of the memory system of the system of FIG. 1;

FIG. 3 is a relational block diagram of a software system according to the present invention, illustrating the transactional relationships between software modules;

FIG. 4 is a process flow diagram of the reduction of input free format text to a usable form;

FIG. 5 is a more detailed process flow diagram of the process illustrated in FIG. 2;

FIG. 6 is a process flow diagram of the life cycle of a corporate disclosure, as would occur by use of a system in accordance with the present invention;

FIG. 7 is a flowchart of generation of a set of relational databases in accordance with one aspect of the invention; and

FIG. 8 is a flowchart of a diagonalization method according to another aspect of the invention.

DETAILED DESCRIPTION

The present invention will be better understood upon reading the following detailed description of specific embodiments of various aspects thereof, in connection with the drawings.

The system is embodied as a combination of one or more hardware elements which operate in response to instructions contained in one or more software programs. The hardware elements may include data processing elements such as shown in FIG. 1, for example.

A typical data processing system includes a processor 101, memory 103 in which data and instructions are stored, one or more input devices 105 and one or more output devices 107, all communicating through an interconnection mechanism 109. Input devices 105 may include, but are not limited to keyboards and pointing devices, such as mice. Output devices 107 include printers, modems and monitors, among others. Processor 101 may be a single-chip microprocessor, a single-board computer a digital signal processing chip or a variety of other devices known to those skilled in this art. The entire system of FIG. 1 may be realized in a personal computer (PC), a mini-computer or a mainframe computer, for example.

In any of the variations described above, memory 103 may be realized as shown in FIG. 2. Memory 103 conventionally includes a long-term storage device, such as disk 203 and a short-term storage device, such as short-term memory 201. Short-term memory 201 may be realized as dynamic random-access memory (DRAM), static RAM (SRAM), or other suitable forms which are known to those skilled in this art. Long-term memory 203 may alternatively be realized as programmable read-only memory (PROM), electrically alterable read-only memory (EAROM), electrically erasable ROM (EEROM), or other suitable forms which are also known to those skilled in this art.

In most conventional arrangements, processor 101 does not communicate data and instructions directly with disk 203, but rather data and instructions from disk 203 are stored temporarily in short-term memory 201 for quick access by processor 101.

Software programs control the operation of the hardware shown in FIGS. 1 and 2 to perform useful functions, such as those performed by systems constructed in accordance with various aspects of the present invention.

The architecture of the system, as illustrated by FIG. 3, divides the system into two major sections, the intracompany part 301 and the intercompany part 303. The intracompany part performs processes which are the responsibility of an individual reporting entity, including related companies. The intercompany part performs processes which go beyond the responsibility of an individual reporting entity. For example, the intracompany part relates to gathering information from various sources within a reporting entity and compiling from the information gathered a disclosure document, while the intercompany part relates to data reduction and analysis of disclosure documents already filed with an official government agency. Each of the described parts may include one or more software programs operating on one or more data processing systems such as shown in FIG. 1. The software programs may be written in C, C++ or any other programming language or system found to be suitable by the skilled artisan at the time of implementation. Presently preferred programming languages include C and C++.

The intracompany part includes three main levels. These are the front end, or user level 305, the middle or engine server level 307, and the back end or database level 309. External interfaces that supply information not available within the reporting entity may also be connected to the intracompany part through special front end connections 311.

The front end level 305 is the level at which reporting entity users 313 interact with the system. The front end level includes special interfaces tailored for the various information sources present within a reporting entity. For example, in SEC reporting, those information sources may include the chief financial officer, a legal department, an auditing department, accounting and various other officers and departments of a corporation.

The middle level 307 includes the operational logic of the system. The middle level also includes communication, linkage and ODBC enabling processes 315. The major features of the middle level include those listed in Table 1.

    TABLE 1
    Feature       Explanation
    Text Search   Searching by keywords and Boolean operation
    Case Search   Searching based on related relevant similar cases (free
                  text, plus user preference)
    Template      Allows for formatting free text (for quality check, analy-
    Based         sis and automatic inferencing)
    Discover Based Allows for nonformatted open ended questions that are
                  also using data mining and inferencing techniques to dig
                  up the answer (based on the special matrix based organi-
                  zation of the data).
    Browser       It allows the user to see the data by a browser, such as
                  HTML.
    Version       Used for keeping tracks of the versions of the document
    Control
    Phase Control Used for keeping track and alerts according to the speci-
                  fied process for ready versions (e.g. draft by a certain
                  time to be sent to specified individuals etc.)
    Security and  Allows access to authorized people (also distinguish
    Access        between and write access)
    Control
    Signature     Allows for electronic signature
    Approval and  Support the process of preparing the document
    Release
    Control
    Linked Module Specific business, consolidation and filing rules
    RULES         (Customizable) for preparing the report
    Linked Module Specific legal (e.g., FASB), accounting and explanatory
    HELPS         help
    Linked Module Specific Process and Phases definition for preparing the
    PROCESS       disclosure
    Linked Module Regulatory and Disclosure requirements updates
    UPDATES
    Reports       Generating predefined and customizable reports and
    Generator     documents (e.g. for different types of companies)
    Multi         The application supports multi language capabilities
    Language
    Repurposing   Allows for application generation in addition to the
    Application   disclosure documents
    Related       For a company with affiliates and related companies that
    Companies     share data
    External      Provide needed data for the documents (such as from
    Input and     Financial Portfolio Management Systems, and legacy
    Interfaces    systems, such as accounting).
    ODBC          Support connectivity to any database with ODBC Driver

    TABLE 2
    Concept           Main Key Level      Context     Instances
    Company                  1        Business Action XYZ
                                                      ABC
                                                      IBM
    Business Action                                   joint venture
    Technology                                        flat screen
                                                      memory

    TABLE 3
    if Business Action then: The necessary parts are: Two or more com-
                                              panies/divisions
                         The optional parts are: Technology

    TABLE 4
                                                      Record
    Record   Company  Business Action Technology  Associated With
       1       XYZ     joint venture  flat screen        2
       2       ABC     joint venture  flat screen        1

    TABLE 5
    Record   Action               With
    Number    Type     Company   Company    Action    Technology
       1    Business     ABC       XYZ       form     flat screen
                                          joint venture

              TABLE 6
               a     b     c      d      e     f     g     h
        1      *     *     *
        2      *                  *
        3                                *     *     *
        4            *     *                   *
        5                                *     *     *
        6            *     *                   *     *      *
        7                                *     *     *
        8                                *     *     *
        9            *     *                   *
       10      *     *    *


          TABLE 7
               e     g     f      h      b     c     a     d
        3      *     *     *
        5      *     *     *
        7      *     *     *
        8      *     *     *
        4                  *             *     *
        9                  *             *     *
        6            *     *      *      *     *
        1                                *     *     *
       10                                *     *     *
        2                                            *     *

• Inventors
  Maimon, Oded; Israel-Rosen, David;
• Assignee
  Japan InfoNet, Inc. (Boston, MA)
• Published
  Apr-16-2002
• Current US Classes:
  704/2
  704/9
  706/16
  707/2
  715/500
• Application #
  729483
• International Classes
  G06F 007/00; G06F 017/30; G06F 017/28
• Field of Search
  707/500 707/1 707/2 707/9 364/419 705/36 706/16 704/9 704/2
• Examiner
  Feild; Joseph H.
• Agent
  Wolf, Greenfield & Sacks, P.C.
• US Patent References:
  5317507
  5490061
  5761631
  5799268
  5857179
  5930774
  5970482
  6263335