Automatic archiving of documents during their transfer between a peripheral device and a processing device

• US 6,199,073 B1
• Filed: 09/26/1997
• Issued: 03/06/2001
• Est. Priority Date: 04/21/1997
• Status: Expired due to Term

• Current Assignee: Ricoh Company Limited, Ricoh Corporation (Ricoh Company Limited)
• Original Assignee: Ricoh Company Limited, Ricoh Corporation (Ricoh Company Limited)
• Inventors: Suzuki, Kiyoshi, Hull, Jonathan J., Peairs, Mark, Cullen, John
• Primary Examiner(s): Alam, Hosain T.
• Application Number:
  US08/938,137
• Time in Patent Office: 1,257 Days
• Field of Search: 707/204, 707/203, 707/104.1, 707/501, 707/513, 705/3, 705/500, 709/217, 709/218
• US Class Current: 1/1
• CPC Class Codes: G06F 11/1458 Management of the backup or restore process
• CPC Class Codes: G06F 16/93 Document management systems
• CPC Class Codes: G06Q 10/087 Inventory or stock management, e.g. order filling, procurement or balancing against orders
• CPC Class Codes: G06Q 99/00 Subject matter not provided for in other groups of this subclass
• CPC Class Codes: H04N 1/21 Intermediate information storage H04N1/387, H04N1/41 take precedence ; for control between transmitter and receiver or between image input and image output device H04N1/32358; indexing, editing G11B27/00
• CPC Class Codes: Y10S 707/99935 Query augmenting and refining, e.g. inexact access
• CPC Class Codes: Y10S 707/99955 Archiving or backup

Abstract

A system and method for processing documents is described. The system and method provide for executing a command as part of the execution of an application program, where execution of the command causes the transfer of the document between a processing device in a computer system and a peripheral device. The present invention also provides for transferring the document data between the processing device and the peripheral device in response to the command. The present invention further provides for archiving the document data in a memory in the computer system in response to the command and transparently to the execution of the application program.

Claims

1. A method for processing documents in a computer system, the method comprising:

executing a command, as part of execution of an application program, to transfer a document between a processing device in the computer system and a peripheral device;

transferring document data between the processing device and the peripheral device in response to the command; and

archiving the document data in a memory in the computer system in response to the command to transfer the document between the processing device and the peripheral device transparently to the application program.

2. The method defined in claim 1 wherein the step of archiving the document data is performed transparently to an operating system running on the computer system.

3. The method of claim 2, wherein the step of archiving the document data comprises:

running software on the computer system to monitor a device driver for the peripheral device while the application program runs;

capturing the document data when the device driver operates to invoke transfer of the document data; and

converting the document data to an image of the document data.

4. The method of claim 3, wherein the document image is stored in a format that includes one format from the group consisting of Postscript, PCL, TIFF, GIFF, PDF and FLAS4PIX.

5. The method of claim 3, wherein the document image is stored in a text file format.

6. The method of claim 1, wherein the memory is a storage device in which storage is partitioned between a file archiving system and a document archiving system.

7. The method of claim 4, wherein the document data is stored as a record in a database maintained in a remote storage facility.

8. The method of claim 4, wherein the document data is stored as a record in a database maintained in a paperless printer.

9. The method of claim 4, wherein the document data is stored as an entry in a database maintained in the storage device.

10. The method of claim 1, further comprising capturing a source filename of the document.

11. The method defined in claim 10, further comprising providing links between an archived document data and the original document data.

12. The method of claim 1, wherein the peripheral device is coupled to a network interface of the computer system.

13. The method of claim 1, further comprising accessing archived documents via a browser interface.

14. The method defined in claim 13 further comprising accessing files stored in the memory storing the archived documents using the browser interface.

15. The method defined in claim 13 further comprising requesting a subset of all documents stored based on object type.

16. The method defined in claim 15 further comprising requesting a subset of all documents stored based on application program type.

17. A method for automatically archiving document images in a computer system, the method comprising the steps of:

monitoring transfers of document data between peripheral devices in the computer system and at least one processing device running application programs in the computer system;

capturing a copy of all document data transferred between the peripheral devices and the at least one processing device transparently to the application program; and

storing the document data in a memory in the computer system.

18. The method of claim 17 further comprising:

capturing electronic activities of computer system processing; and

storing a document containing a record of the electronic activities in the memory.

19. The method of claim 17 further comprising:

capturing completion of a network document; and

storing the network document as a record in the memory.

20. The method defined in claim 17 wherein storing the document data is performed transparently to the operating system.

21. The method of claim 17, further comprising:

running software on the computer system to monitor a device driver for the peripheral device while application programs run;

capturing the document data when the device driver operates to evoke transfer of document data; and

converting the document data in an image of the document data for storage.

22. The method of claim 17, wherein the memory is a storage device in which storage is partitioned between a file archiving system and a document archiving system.

23. The method of claim 17, further comprising accessing archived documents via a browser interface.

24. The method defined in claim 23, further comprising accessing files stored in the memory using the browser interface.

25. The method defined in claim 17, further comprising:

capturing a source filename of the document; and

providing links between archived document data and the original document data.

26. A computer system comprising:

at least one peripheral device;

a memory storing at least one application program and an archiving program;

a bus coupled to the memory and the at least one peripheral device;

a processor coupled to the bus, the processor running at least one application program and the archiving program to automatically capture documents created during execution of said at least one application program and store captured documents in the memory via execution of the archiving program transparently with respect to said at least one application program.

27. The system defined in claim 26 wherein the processor executes a command to transfer the document and the archiving program monitors a device driver of said at least one application program to capture the document.

28. The system defined in claim 26 wherein the memory stores an operating system which is executed by the processor and wherein the documents are captured transparently to the operating system.

29. The system defined in claim 26 wherein the computer system is partitioned between a file archiving system and a document archiving system.

30. The system defined in claim 26 wherein the archiving program includes an interface which is generated by the processor to enable accessing of the archived documents via a browser interface.

31. The system defined in claim 30 wherein files stored in the memory are also accessed via the browser interface.

32. A computer software product including a medium readable by a processor, the medium having stored thereon a sequence of instructions which, when executed by the processor, causes the processor to:

execute a command, as part of execution of an application program, to transfer a document between a processing device in the computer system and a peripheral device;

transfer document data between the processing device and the peripheral device in response to the command; and

archiving the document data in a memory in the computer system in response to the command to transfer the document between the processing device and the peripheral device transparently to the application program.

33. An apparatus for processing documents in computer systems comprising:

means for executing a command, as part of execution of an application program, to transfer a document between a processing device in the computer system and a peripheral device;

means for transmitting document data between the processing device and the peripheral device in response to the command; and

means for archiving the document data in a memory in the computer system in response to the command to transfer the document between the processing device and the peripheral device transparently to execution of the application program.

34. The apparatus defined in claim 33 further comprising:

means for capturing a source filename of the document, and means for providing links between archived document data and the electronic originals.