Autonomous Spreadsheet Population From Natural Language Queries

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Solution Overview

Problem

Conventional spreadsheets require manual data entry, which is prone to human errors and consumes significant time and computing resources, especially when deriving cell values from other cells.

Innovation Solution

An autonomous document creation system that utilizes natural language processing to generate and populate electronic documents with data from external sources, such as knowledge graphs or websites, based on user queries, reducing the need for manual input and minimizing errors.

Engineering Contradictions & Design Principles

VSEngineering Contradiction Analysis

1Reliability

If manual data entry is used to populate spreadsheet cells, then flexibility and control are maintained, but human errors increase and time consumption increases

Engineering Contradiction:

Improveerror reductionVSAvoidtime consumption

Core Design Contradiction:

ReliabilityVSLoss of time

Solution Approach 1:

The system enables autonomous spreadsheet creation where the spreadsheet application automatically retrieves data from external sources and populates cells based on natural language queries, eliminating the need for manual data entry while reducing errors and time consumption

Inventive Principle:

Principle #25Self-service

Solution Approach 2:

The patent replaces manual mechanical data entry operations with automated computational processes that use natural language processing and external data source integration to populate spreadsheet cells automatically

Inventive Principle:

Principle #28Mechanics substitution (Replace mechanical system)

2Productivity

If manual data entry is used for each cell, then data accuracy can be controlled, but productivity decreases and resource consumption increases

Engineering Contradiction:

Improvedocument creation speedVSAvoidcomputing resource consumption

Core Design Contradiction:

ProductivityVSUse of energy by moving object

Solution Approach 1:

The system performs preliminary actions by automatically retrieving and validating data from external sources before population, and by pre-processing natural language queries to determine optimal data retrieval strategies, thereby improving productivity while managing resource consumption efficiently

Inventive Principle:

Principle #10Preliminary action

3Extent of automation

If spreadsheets support programming capability for deriving cell values, then automation capability increases, but device complexity increases

Engineering Contradiction:

Improveautomatic data populationVSAvoidsystem complexity

Core Design Contradiction:

Extent of automationVSDevice complexity

Solution Approach 1:

The patent introduces an intermediary natural language interface that mediates between user intent and complex automated data retrieval and population processes, allowing high程度的 automation while shielding users from system complexity through simple query input

Inventive Principle:

Principle #24Intermediary (Mediator)

Data Source

PatentUS12499307B2Autonomous spreadsheet creation

Publication Date: 2025.12.16 GOOGLE LLC

AI summary

A method includes receiving, by a processing device, a natural language query corresponding to a request to create a document having a tabular structure, identifying, by the processing device, one or more attribute categories pertaining to the document, converting, by the processing device, the natural language query into a data access query for accessing at least one external data source, retrieving, by the processing device from the at least one external data source, a plurality of data items corresponding to the one or more attribute categories, and generating, by the processing device, the document by populating each cell of a plurality of cells of the document with a respective data item of the plurality of data items.