METHOD AND APPARATUS FOR DETECTING, VALIDATING, AND CORRELATING FORM-FIELDS IN A SCANNED DOCUMENT

• US 20150317296A1
• Filed: 05/05/2014
• Published: 11/05/2015
• Est. Priority Date: 05/05/2014
• Status: Active Grant

• Current Assignee: Adobe Inc.
• Original Assignee: Adobe Systems Incorporated (Adobe Inc.)
• Inventors: Vohra, Lalit, Gupta, Yash Kumar, Pandey, Aditya Kumar, Bansal, Mohit
• Granted Patent: US 10,176,159 B2
• Time in Patent Office: Days
• US Class Current: 1/1
• CPC Class Codes: G06F 16/248 Presentation of query results
• CPC Class Codes: G06F 16/93 Document management systems
• CPC Class Codes: G06F 40/174 Form filling; Merging

Abstract

A computer implemented method and apparatus for detecting, validating, and correlating form-fields in a scanned document. The method comprises displaying a plurality of interactive form-fields associated with a scanned document, wherein each interactive form-field in the plurality of form-fields is defined by a location in the document where one or more previous users entered information on the scanned document, and a data type for the entered information.

Claims

1. A computer implemented method comprising:

accessing a scanned document by an electronic device;

determining form fields for the scanned document based on subsequent interactions with the scanned document by at least one other user, wherein determining comprises;

fetching location information corresponding to at least one location where said at least one other user entered information on the scanned document;

fetching data type information for data filled in the form fields by said at least one other user;

one of identifying and generating form fields using the fetched location information and fetched data type information; and

causing display of a plurality of interactive form-fields associated with the scanned document.

2. The method of claim 1, further comprising:

fetching correlation information;

identifying form fields from the correlation information;

determining a rule, from fetched correlation information governing identified form fields, for correlating two or more form-fields based on responses from one or more previous users.

3. The method of claim 2, wherein when a first form-field in the plurality of form-fields is correlated to a second form-field that requires an attachment, validating the attachment in the second form-field by determining that the attachment comprises information entered in the first form-field.

4. The method of claim 2, wherein when a first form-field in the plurality of form-fields is positively correlated to a second form-field in the plurality of form-fields, upon entry of information in the first form-field, the second form-field is displayed prominently, and wherein when a first form-field in the plurality of form-fields is negatively correlated to a second form-field in the plurality of form-fields, upon entry of information in the first form-field, the second form-field is displayed at least one of less prominently or disabled.

5. The method of claim 2, further comprising receiving input for an identified form-field and causing one of display of a message and completion of an action based on the determined rule for the identified form field.

6. The method of claim 1, wherein a form-field in the plurality of form-fields is identified when a first previous user entered information in a first bounding box that overlaps a second bounding box where a second previous user entered information, wherein (i) the first previous user is different from the second previous user, (ii) the first bounding box and the second bounding box overlap by a pre-defined percentage and (iii) the information entered in the first bounding box and the second bounding box are of a same data type.

7. The method of claim 3, further comprising, when the attachment is not correlated to a form-field in the scanned document, searching a plurality of documents for documents that have a same or similar filename to filenames of a file attached by previous users.

8. The method of claim 3, further comprising, when the second form-field requiring the attachment is selected, scanning a plurality of documents to find one or more documents that include an entry made in the correlated first form-field.

9. An apparatus for detecting, validating, and correlating form-fields in a scanned document comprising:

a computer having one or more processors and further comprising;

a suggestion module for displaying a plurality of interactive form-fields associated with a scanned document, wherein each interactive form-field in the plurality of form-fields is defined by (i) a location in the document where one or more previous users entered information on the scanned document, and (ii) a data type for the entered information.

10. The apparatus of claim 9, further comprising correlating two or more form-fields based on responses from one or more previous users.

11. The apparatus of claim 10, further comprising when a first form-field in the plurality of form-fields is correlated to a second form-field that requires an attachment, and the second form-field requiring the attachment is selected, scanning a plurality of documents to find one or more documents that include an entry made in the correlated first form-field, and validating the attachment in the second form-field by determining that the attachment comprises information entered in the first form-field.

12. The apparatus of claim 10, wherein when a first form-field in the plurality of form-fields is positively correlated to a second form-field in the plurality of form-fields, upon entry of information in the first form-field, the second form-field is displayed prominently, and wherein when a first form-field in the plurality of form-fields is negatively correlated to a second form-field in the plurality of form-fields, upon entry of information in the first form-field, the second form-field is displayed at least one of less prominently or disabled.

13. The apparatus of claim 9, wherein a form-field in the plurality of form-fields is identified when a first previous user entered information in a first bounding box that overlaps a second bounding box where a second previous user entered information, wherein (i) the first previous user is different from the second previous user, (ii) the first bounding box and the second bounding box overlap by a pre-defined percentage and (iii) the information entered in the first bounding box and the second bounding box are of a same data type.

14. A computer-implemented method comprising:

accessing a scanned document by an electronic device; and

determining one or more form-fields for the scanned document based on previous user interactions with the scanned document.

15. The computer readable medium of claim 14, wherein determining comprises:

accessing location information of the one or more form fields;

accessing data type information filled in the one or more form fields;

generating form-fields on a form-field layer using the fetched location information and data type information; and

causing to display the generated one or more form-fields.

16. The computer readable medium of claim 14, further comprising:

accessing correlation information;

identifying two or more form-fields from the correlation information; and

determining a rule from the correlation information governing the identified two or more form-fields.

17. The computer readable medium of claim 16, further comprising:

receiving input for identified form-fields; and

at least one of causing to display message and causing an action based on the determined rule for the identified-form field.

18. The computer readable medium of claim 16, wherein the correlation is at least one of between a form-field and an attachment or between two form-fields.

19. The computer readable medium of claim 16, further comprising:

when a first form-field in the one or more form-fields is correlated to a second form-field that requires an attachment, validating the attachment in the second form-field by determining that the attachment comprises information entered in the first form-field.

20. The computer readable medium of claim 16, further comprising:

when a first form-field in the two or more form-fields is positively correlated to a second form-field in the two or more form-fields, upon entry of information in the first form-field, the second form-field is displayed prominently, and wherein when a first form-field in the plurality of form-fields is negatively correlated to a second form-field in the plurality of form-fields, upon entry of information in the first form-field, the second form-field is displayed at least one of less prominently or disabled.