Methods and systems for annotating electronic documents

1. A computer-implemented method of annotating an electronic document comprising:

receiving annotation information corresponding to an annotation of a first electronic document file at an annotation location, wherein the first electronic document file is a text document;

generating annotation metadata associated with the annotation information by creating topographic patterns from text of the first electronic document file and the annotation information, wherein the topographic patterns include one or more document patterns, one or more anchor patterns, one or more neighborhood patterns, or combinations thereof;

storing the annotation information and associated annotation metadata in an annotation file that is separate from the first electronic document file;

generating topographic patterns from text of a target electronic document file, wherein:

the topographic patterns include document patterns, anchor patterns, neighborhood patterns, or combinations thereof, and the target electronic document file is a modified version of the first electronic document file such that an underlying text of the target electronic document file is different from an underlying text of the first electronic document file;

the document patterns include a document name, a document length, a document date, document shingles, or combinations thereof;

the anchor patterns of the first electronic document file include a word or a text associated with the annotation located in the first electronic document file, a first character of the word or the text, a last character of the word or the text, a word or text length, or combinations thereof;

the anchor patterns of the target electronic document file include a plurality of words associated with the target electronic document file, wherein characteristics of each word include a position of the word within the target electronic document file, a length of the word, a first character of the word, a first character of the word, or combinations thereof;

the neighborhood patterns of the first electronic document file comprise a plurality of document shingles associated with the annotation location in the first electronic document file; and

the neighborhood patterns of the target electronic document file comprise a plurality of document shingles associated with one or more potential anchor locations;

comparing the topographic patterns of the first electronic document file to the topographic patterns of the target electronic document file to determine an anchor location within the target electronic document file; and

anchoring the annotation information, by a computer device, to the target electronic document file at the anchor location within the text of the target electronic document file.

2. The computer-implemented method of claim 1 wherein:

comparing the topographic patterns of the first electronic document file to the topographic patterns of the target electronic document file further comprises:

comparing the document patterns of the first electronic document file with the document patterns of the target electronic document file to generate a document similarity value; and

comparing the document similarity value with a threshold document similarity value; and

the computer-implemented method further comprises adding the annotation information to the first electronic document file when the document similarity value is greater than the threshold document similarity value.

3. The computer-implemented method of claim 2 wherein:

comparing the topographic patterns of the first electronic document file to the topographic patterns of the target electronic document file further comprises comparing the anchor patterns of the first electronic document file to the anchor patterns of the target electronic document file to determine one or more potential anchor locations;

when there is one potential anchor location, anchoring the annotation information to the target electronic document file at the potential anchor location; and

when there is more than one potential anchor location, comparing the neighborhood patterns of the first electronic document file with the neighborhood patterns of the target electronic document file, and anchoring the annotation information to the potential anchor location having neighborhood patterns that are most similar to the neighborhood patterns of the first electronic document file.

4. A computer-implemented method of annotating an electronic document comprising:

receiving annotation information corresponding to a first electronic document file, wherein the first electronic document file is a text document;

creating annotation metadata that is associated with the annotation information and comprises contextual information relating to an annotation location in the first electronic document file, wherein:

the annotation metadata is created by assigning a target offset value to neighboring tokens defining an annotation neighborhood, wherein the target offset values correspond to positions of the neighboring tokens with respect to the annotation location within the first electronic document file;

the neighboring tokens comprise words within the first electronic document file;

the target offset value of a particular neighboring token represents a number of words from which the particular neighboring token is separated from the annotation location; and

the target offset value of each neighboring token provides a candidate anchoring position;

storing the annotation information and associated annotation metadata in an annotation file that is separate from the first electronic document file; and

anchoring, by a computer device, the annotation information to a target electronic document file at an anchor location corresponding to the annotation metadata, wherein the target electronic document file is a modified version of the first electronic document file such that an underlying text of the target electronic document file is different from an underlying text of the first electronic document file, wherein anchoring the annotation information further comprises:

evaluating the candidate anchoring positions such that a weight of each candidate anchoring position is determined at least in part on an influence function;

selecting the candidate anchoring position having a maximum preference from the neighboring tokens as the anchor location; and

anchoring the annotation information at the anchor location within the target electronic document file.

5. The computer-implemented method of claim 4 , wherein neighboring tokens positioned in a first direction from the annotation location are assigned a positive target offset value and neighboring tokens positioned in a second direction from the annotation location are assigned a negative target offset value.

6. The computer-implemented method of claim 4 , wherein:

the neighboring tokens comprise characters within the first electronic document; and

the target offset value of a particular neighboring token represents a number of characters from which the particular neighboring token is separated from the annotation location.

7. A computer-implemented method of annotating an electronic document comprising:

receiving annotation information corresponding to a first electronic document file, wherein the first electronic document file is a text document;

creating annotation metadata that is associated with the annotation information and comprises contextual information relating to an annotation location in the first electronic document file, wherein:

the annotation metadata is created by assigning a target offset value to neighboring tokens defining an annotation neighborhood, wherein the target offset values correspond to positions of the neighboring tokens with respect to the annotation location within the first electronic document file;

the target offset value of each neighboring token provides a candidate anchoring position;

a base token is associated with the annotation location;

a magnitude of the target offset value of the base token is less than the magnitude of each of the remaining target offset values associated with the remaining neighborhood tokens; and

the magnitude of the target offset value of a neighboring token that is located relatively further from the annotation location is greater than the magnitude of the target offset value of a neighboring token that is located relatively closer to the annotation location;

storing the annotation information and associated annotation metadata in an annotation file that is separate from the first electronic document file; and

anchoring, by a computer device, the annotation information to a target electronic document file at an anchor location corresponding to the annotation metadata, wherein the target electronic document file is a modified version of the first electronic document file such that an underlying text of the target electronic document file is different from an underlying text of the first electronic document file, wherein anchoring the annotation information further comprises:

evaluating the candidate anchoring positions such that a weight of each candidate anchoring position is determined at least in part on an influence function;

selecting the candidate anchoring position having a maximum preference from the neighboring tokens as the anchor location; and

anchoring the annotation information at the anchor location within the target electronic document file.

8. The computer-implemented method of claim 7 , wherein:

the neighboring tokens comprise words within the first electronic document file; and

the target offset value of a particular neighboring token represents a number of words from which the particular neighboring token is separated from the annotation location.

9. The computer-implemented method of claim 7 , wherein neighboring tokens positioned in a first direction from the annotation location are assigned a positive target offset value and neighboring tokens positioned in a second direction from the annotation location are assigned a negative target offset value.

10. The computer-implemented method of claim 7 wherein:

the neighboring tokens comprise characters within the first electronic document; and

the target offset value of a particular neighboring token represents a number of characters from which the particular neighboring token is separated from the annotation location.