Document management workflow for redacted documents

• US 20090089663A1
• Filed: 05/16/2008
• Published: 04/02/2009
• Est. Priority Date: 10/06/2005
• Status: Active Grant

• Current Assignee: Celcorp Incorporated
• Original Assignee: Celcorp Incorporated
• Inventors: Rebstock, John, Schrichte, Christopher K.
• Granted Patent: US 11,769,010 B2
• Time in Patent Office: Days
• US Class Current: 715/253
• CPC Class Codes: G06F 40/166 Editing, e.g. inserting or deleting
• CPC Class Codes: G06F 40/253 Grammatical analysis; Style critique

Abstract

A method including accessing an electronic document from a source of electronic documents; determining if the electronic document is redaction protected; and when the electronic document is redaction protected, allowing the electronic document to be opened only if a redaction application is available to allow opening of the electronic document with a redaction.

Claims

1. A method comprising:

accessing an electronic document from a source of electronic documents;

determining if the electronic document is redaction protected; and

when the electronic document is redaction protected, allowing the electronic document to be opened only if a redaction application is available to allow opening of the electronic document with a redaction.

2. A method as in claim 1 wherein allowing the electronic document to be opened comprises use of an redaction application plug-in in another application.

3. A method as in claim 1 wherein allowing the electronic document to be opened comprises use of a background running redaction application.

4. A method as in claim 1 further comprising creating an electronic unredacted document and storing the unredacted document in the source of electronic documents as the electronic document.

5. A method as in claim 4 further comprising associating a redaction code with the electronic unredacted document indicating that redaction is needed.

6. A method as in claim 1 further comprising creating an electronic redacted document and storing the redacted document in the source of electronic documents as the electronic document, wherein creating the electronic redacted document comprises scanning a paper form of the document and automatically applying a redaction to form the electronic redacted document.

7. A method as in claim 6 further comprising associating a redaction code with the electronic redacted document indicating that redaction is not needed.

8. A method as in claim 1 further comprising scanning a paper document to form the electronic document and storing the electronic document in the source of electronic documents.

9. A method as in claim 8 further comprising storing a different form of the electronic document in a memory, wherein the electronic document and the different form of the electronic document comprise a redacted form of the paper document and an unredacted form of the paper document.

10. A method as in claim 1 wherein, when the electronic document is an electronic unredacted form of an original document, automatically performing a redaction of a portion of the electronic document to form an electronic redacted document before allowing access to information in the redacted document.

11. A method as in claim 10 further comprising storing the electronic redacted document.

12. A method as in claim 10 wherein, when a subsequent request to access the electronic document is received, determining if the electronic document has been previously stored as the electronic redacted document.

13. A method as in claim 12 further comprising accessing the previously stored electronic redacted document rather than the unredacted electronic document when the subsequent request to access the electronic document is received.

14. A method comprising:

accessing an electronic document from a source of electronic documents;

determining if the electronic document is a redacted form of an original document or an unredacted form of the original document; and

automatically performing a redaction operation when the electronic document is determined to be an unredacted form of the original document.

15. A method comprising:

scanning a paper form of a document;

automatically performing a redaction of information on the document; and

storing an electronic redacted form of the document as a redacted document.

16. A method as in claim 15 further comprising storing an electronic unreduced form of the document as an unreduced document at substantially a same time the redacted document is stored.

17. A computer program product comprising a computer readable storage medium storing a computer program configured to perform operations when executed by digital processing apparatus, the operations comprising:

determining if an electronic document file is a redacted form of a document or an unredacted form of the document; and

performing a redaction of information in the electronic document file if the electronic document file is determined to be an unredacted form of the document.

18. The computer program product of claim 17 wherein the operations further comprise:

after performing the redaction, automatically storing the subsequently formed redacted form of the document in a memory.

19. A computer program product comprising a computer readable storage medium storing a computer program configured to perform operations when executed by digital processing apparatus, the operations comprising:

determining if an electronic document file is a redacted form of a document or an unredacted form of the document; and

when the electronic document is determined to be the redacted form of the document, preventing opening of the document by a document viewing application unless a redaction application is operably connected to the document viewing application.