Techniques for printing with integrated paper sheet identification

• US 20070036599A1
• Filed: 07/28/2006
• Published: 02/15/2007
• Est. Priority Date: 08/12/2005
• Status: Active Grant

• Current Assignee: Ricoh Company Limited
• Original Assignee: Ricoh Company Limited
• Inventors: Piersol, Kurt, Weyl, Stephen
• Granted Patent: US 7,731,435 B2
• Time in Patent Office: Days
• US Class Current: 400/76
• CPC Class Codes: G06V 10/42 Global feature extraction by analysis of the whole pattern, e.g. using frequency domain transformations or autocorrelation
• CPC Class Codes: G06V 20/80 Recognising image objects characterised by unique random patterns
• CPC Class Codes: H04N 1/32 Circuits or arrangements for control or supervision between transmitter and receiver or between image input and image output device, e.g. between a still-image camera and its memory or between a still-image camera and a printer device H04N1/38, H04N1/387 take precedence

Abstract

A printing method and apparatus includes fingerprinting a sheet of printable media such as paper to obtain a fingerprint. The fingerprint is encrypted using an encryption key known only to the user wanting to print the document. The encrypted fingerprint is then encoded and transferred to the document as machine readable information.

Claims

1. A method for printing an electronic document comprising:

receiving from a printing source a communication to print a document;

generating first fingerprint data for at least a first sheet of printable media on which the document is to be printed, the first fingerprint data determined from intrinsic structure of the first sheet of printable media;

generating second fingerprint data at least from the first fingerprint data;

transmitting to the printing source the second fingerprint data;

receiving from the printing source encrypted fingerprint data and a first decryption key, the encrypted fingerprint data comprising an encrypted form of the second fingerprint data, the first decryption key suitable for decrypting the encrypted fingerprint data to thereby recover the second fingerprint data; and

printing the document on the first sheet of printable media, including transferring machine readable information to the first sheet of printable media, wherein the encrypted fingerprint data and the first decryption key can be obtained from the machine readable information.

2. The method of claim 1 wherein generating first fingerprint data includes scanning a first area of the first sheet of printable media with a beam of light to obtain optical data based on measurements of light scattered from intrinsic structure of the surface of the first area and processing the optical data to produce the first fingerprint data.

3. The method of claim 1 wherein the machine readable information comprises an encoding of both the encrypted fingerprint data and the first decryption key.

4. The method of claim 1 further comprising receiving from the printing source a hash value computed from a hash operation performed on the document to be printed, wherein the machine readable information comprises an encoding of the encrypted fingerprint data, the first decryption key, and the hash value.

5. The method of claim 1 wherein the second fingerprint data comprises the first encryption data in unencrypted form.

6. The method of claim 1 wherein the step of generating second fingerprint data comprises producing an encryption of the first fingerprint data, the second fingerprint data comprising the encryption of the first fingerprint data and a second decryption key suitable for decrypting the encryption of the first fingerprint data to thereby recover the first fingerprint data.

7. The method of claim 6 wherein producing an encryption of the first fingerprint data includes encrypting the first fingerprint data with a second encryption key.

8. The method of claim 1 wherein the second fingerprint data comprises the first fingerprint data in clear text form, wherein the transferring includes encrypting the encrypted fingerprint data whereby the machine readable information comprises an encryption of the encrypted fingerprint data and a second decryption key suitable for decrypting the encryption of the encrypted fingerprint data to thereby recover the encrypted fingerprint data.

9. The method of claim 1 wherein the transferring includes either printing the machine readable information on the first sheet of printable media, or storing the machine readable information in an electronic memory of a tag embedded in the first sheet of printable media.

10. The method of claim 1 wherein the first fingerprint data is obtained from a first area of the first sheet of printable media, the method further comprising generating additional fingerprint data for additional areas of the printable media, wherein the steps of transmitting and receiving are performed for the additional fingerprint data, wherein additional machine readable information is transferred to the first sheet of printable media.

17. The device of claim 1 the source of printable media provides the first sheet of printable media by dispensing a single sheet of printable media.

11. A printing device comprising:

a control component configured to control operations in the printing device and to communicate with a printing source that is external to the printing device and is a source for print requests;

a source of printable media;

a fingerprinter operable to obtain fingerprint data from a sheet of printable media, the fingerprint data being determined based on an intrinsic structure of the sheet of printable media; and

a printer component operable to produce printed matter on a sheet of printable material,

the source of printable media configured to provide a first sheet of printable media in response to receiving a request from the printing source to print an electronic document,

the control component further configured to;

cause the fingerprinter to obtain first fingerprint data from a portion of the first sheet of printable media;

transmit second fingerprint data to the printing source, the second fingerprint data being based at least on the first fingerprint data;

receive fingerprint information from the printing source comprising encrypted fingerprint data and a first decryption key suitable for decrypting the encrypted fingerprint data to thereby recover the second fingerprint data;

cause the printer component to produce printed matter on the first sheet of printable media; and

transfer machine readable information to the first sheet of printable media, wherein the fingerprint information can be obtained from the machine readable information.

12. The device of claim 11 wherein the first fingerprint data is based on optical data obtained from measurements of light scattered from intrinsic structure of the surface of a first area of the first sheet of printable media.

13. The device of claim 11 wherein the machine readable information comprises indicia printed on the first sheet of printable media.

14. The method of claim 11 wherein the machine readable information comprises an encoding of the fingerprint information.

15. The method of claim 14 wherein the fingerprint information further comprises a hash value computed from a hash operation performed on the electronic document to be printed.

16. The device of claim 11 further comprising a writer device configured to transmit data to a data store of an electronic tag embedded in a sheet of printable media, wherein the machine readable information comprises data transmitted by the writer device to the data store of an electronic tag embedded in the first sheet of printable media.

18. The device of claim 11 wherein the control component is further configured to encrypt the first fingerprint data to produce encrypted data wherein the second fingerprint data comprises the encrypted data.

19. The device of claim 11 wherein the control component is further configured to encrypt the fingerprint information.

20. A method for printing an electronic document comprising:

receiving from a printing source a request to print a document;

generating first fingerprint data for a first sheet of printable media on which the document is to be printed, the first fingerprint data determined from an intrinsic property of the first sheet of printable media;

transmitting to the printing source second fingerprint data produced at least from the first fingerprint data, wherein the printing source encrypts the second fingerprint data and stores the encrypted second fingerprint data and a first decryption key in a data store, the first decryption key suitable for recovering the second fingerprint data from the encrypted second fingerprint data;

receiving from the printing source a location indication which can be used to obtain from the data store the encrypted second fingerprint data and the first decryption key stored therein; and

printing the document on the first sheet of printable media, including transferring machine readable information to the first sheet of printable media, wherein the location indication can be obtained from the machine readable information.