System and method for organizing files based on a unique identification code

Patent metadata

Field	Value
Publication number	US-9690798-B2
Application number	US-201514949577-A
Country	US
Kind code	B2
Filing date	Nov 23, 2015
Priority date	Dec 21, 2012
Publication date	Jun 27, 2017
Grant date	Jun 27, 2017

Abstract

A system for determining a time that a file was created and associating an ID with the file based on the file creation time is disclosed. The system adjusts the creation time by a time zone offset. In the case of image files, the file creation time may be based on information associated with the image: (1) by the camera that took the picture (exchangeable image file data); (2) when the photo was last modified in memory (file modification time data); (3) based on the raw date and time the photo file was created (file date-time data); and (4) when the photo was imported onto a client device. The system may rename the file with this adjusted creation time to create a standardized name. As a result, the standardized name provides a filename nomenclature that is based on the actual or estimated time of when the file was created.

First claim

What is claimed:

1. A computer-implemented method comprising:
receiving by a content management system, from a client device, a plurality of files, each file having respective associated data including a file name;
creating by the content management system, a standardized name for each file based on a creation time for the corresponding file;
determining by the content management system, that more than one of the received plurality of files have duplicate standardized names; and
adding by the content management system, a modifier to each standardized name for the duplicate standardized names, wherein each modifier is based on the associated data of the file for which it modifies.

2. The computer-implemented method of claim 1 further comprising converting the creation time to a base time zone by a time zone offset.

3. The computer-implemented method of claim 1 wherein each file comprises an image and the creation time is a capture time of the image.

4. The computer-implemented method of claim 3 wherein the respective associated data further comprises at least one of:
exchangeable image file data that comprises a date and a time that the image was captured;
a file modification time that indicates a date and a time that the at least one file was stored in memory of the device that captured the image;
a file date-time that indicates a raw date and a raw time that the at least one file was created; or
a file import time that indicates when the at least one file was imported to the client device.

5. The computer-implemented method of claim 4 further comprising converting the capture time to a base time zone based on the time zone data associated with the file import time.

6. The computer-implemented method of claim 4 further comprising creating a standardized format for the capture time.

7. The computer-implemented method of claim 6 wherein the standardized format of the capture time is expressed as a two digit month, a two digit day, a four digit year, a two digit hour, a two digit minute, and a two digit second.

8. The computer-implemented method of claim 4 wherein the exchangeable image file data further comprises geographic data including a time zone.

9. The computer-implemented method of claim 8 further comprising converting the capture time to a base time zone by an offset based on the time zone associated with the geographic data.

10. The computer-implemented method of claim 4 wherein the client device is a handheld device having a camera.

11. The computer-implemented method of claim 1 , wherein the content management system comprises a synchronized content and sharing system.

12. The computer-implemented method of claim 1 wherein the respective associated data further contains file modification data that is expressed in milliseconds.

13. A computer-implemented method comprising:
receiving at a content management system, from a client device, a plurality of image files and data associated with each of the plurality of image files wherein the data comprises:
a file name, assigned by the client device that captured the image for each of the plurality of image files; and
a capture time;

renaming each of the plurality of image files with a standardized name that is based on the capture time of the image file;
determining that more than one of the received plurality of files have duplicate standardized names; and
adding a modifier to each standardized name for the duplicated standardized names, wherein each modifier is based on associated data of the file for which it modifies.

14. The computer-implemented method of claim 13 further comprising organizing the plurality of image files based on the standardized name.

15. The computer-implemented method of claim 13 further comprising adjusting the capture time based on a time zone.

16. The computer-implemented method of claim 13 , further comprising storing each of the plurality of image files and the data associated with each of the plurality of image files, wherein the data comprises the standardized name.

17. A system comprising:
at least one processor;
memory operatively coupled to the at least one processor, with the at least one processor configured to:
receive, from a client device, a plurality of files, each file having respective associated data including a file name and a creation time;
create a standardized name for each file based on the creation time for the corresponding file;
determine that more than one of the received plurality of files have duplicate standardized names; and
add a modifier to each standardized name for the duplicate standardized names, wherein each modifier is based on the associated data of the file for which it modifies.

18. The system of claim 17 wherein the plurality of digital content is a plurality of image files.

19. The system of claim 18 wherein the at least one processor is further configured to organize the plurality of image files based on the standardized name for each of the plurality of image files.

20. The system of claim 17 wherein the at least one processor is further configured to store in the memory each of the plurality of files and the data associated with each of the plurality of files, wherein the data comprises a unique identification code.

Assignees

• Dropbox Inc

Inventors

• Balakrishnan Ramesh

Classifications

• G06F17/30265

  Physics · mapped topic

• G06F17/30123 Primary

  Physics · mapped topic

• G06F16/58 Primary

  Retrieval characterised by using metadata, e.g. metadata not derived from the content or metadata generated manually · CPC title

• G06F16/166 Primary

  File name conversion · CPC title