Method and apparatus for indexing and searching content in hardcopy documents

• US 6,546,385 B1
• Filed: 08/13/1999
• Issued: 04/08/2003
• Est. Priority Date: 08/13/1999
• Status: Expired due to Fees

• Current Assignee: International Business Machines Corporation
• Original Assignee: International Business Machines Corporation
• Inventors: Niblack, Carlton Wayne, Mao, Jianchang
• Primary Examiner(s): Breene, John
• Assistant Examiner(s): Ali, Mohammad
• Application Number:
  US09/374,380
• Time in Patent Office: 1,334 Days
• Field of Search: 707/506, 707/530, 707/501, 707/1-10, 707/101-104, 707/513, 707/204, 705/408, 382/305, 382/232-33, 382/54, 380/54
• US Class Current: 707/711
• CPC Class Codes: G06F 16/30 of unstructured textual data document management systems G06F16/93
• CPC Class Codes: G06F 16/93 Document management systems
• CPC Class Codes: Y10S 707/917 Text
• CPC Class Codes: Y10S 707/959 Network
• CPC Class Codes: Y10S 707/99933 Query processing, i.e. searching

Abstract

A method and apparatus for indexing and searching content in a hardcopy document utilizes a searching assistant computing device (402) with an index table (420) stored in memory (412). The index table (420) is created in memory by scanning a 2-D barcode from a hardcopy document or alternatively by downloading indexing information from a web page via the Internet (430). A search engine (410) in the searching assistant (402) searches the index table (420) to locate a data element found in the content of the hardcopy document. The indexing information corresponding to the data element is displayed to a user as part of the search results to indicate the location of the data element in the hardcopy document.

Claims

1. A system for index searching content in a hardcopy document comprising:

a display for displaying information to a user;

a user input for accepting input from the user;

a memory for storing indexing information, the indexing information comprising index entries that are searchable by a search engine, each of the index entries identifying at least one data element and its specific location in a hardcopy document;

a search engine electrically coupled to the display, the user input, and the memory, for searching the indexing information, in response to an input from the user requesting the specific location of a data element in the hardcopy document, to find at least one of the index entries in the indexing information identifying the requested data element and its specific location in the hardcopy document, to display to the user a representation of the specific location in the hardcopy document of the found at least one of the index entries in the indexing information to identify to the user the specific location of the requested data element in the hardcopy document;

a barcode scanner for scanning barcode encoded indexing information from a hardcopy document; and

a barcode decoder electrically coupled to the barcode scanner and to the memory for decoding barcode encoded information from the barcode scanner and for storing the decoded indexing information in the memory, the indexing information being searchable by the search engine to find the requested data element in the hardcopy document.

2. The system of claim 1, wherein:

the barcode scanner comprises a 2-D barcode scanner for scanning 2-D barcode encoded indexing information from a hardcopy document; and

the barcode decoder comprises a 2-D barcode decoder electrically coupled to the 2-D barcode scanner and to the memory for decoding 2-D barcode encoded information from the 2-D barcode scanner and for storing the decoded indexing information in the memory, the indexing information being searchable by the search engine to find the requested data element in the hardcopy document.

3. The system of claim 1, further comprising:

a network interface electrically coupled to the memory for downloading indexing information from a network server and for storing the downloaded indexing information in the memory, the indexing information being searchable by the search engine to locate the one data element.

4. The system of claim 3, wherein the network server comprises a web page server on a wide area network, and the network interface downloads the indexing information from the web page server via the wide area network.

5. The system of claim 1, further comprising:

a personal computer (PC) communications interface electrically coupled to the memory for downloading indexing information from a PC and for storing the downloaded indexing information in the memory, the indexing information being searchable by the search engine to locate the one data element.

6. The system of claim 5, wherein the PC comprises a network interface for downloading indexing information via the PC from a web page server over the Internet, the indexing information being downloaded via the PC and stored in the memory, the indexing information being searchable by the search engine to locate the one data element.

7. The system according to claim 1, further comprising:

user input means for accepting input from the user, the user input means being electrically coupled to the search engine and in response to accepting input from the user the search engine searching the indexing information to locate one data element of the at least one data element and displaying indexing information corresponding to the one data element as part of the results of the search.

8. The system of claim 7, wherein the display displays a list of candidate data elements to search and the user input comprises a selection of one candidate data element from the list, the search engine searching the indexing information to locate the one candidate data element and the display displaying indexing information corresponding to the one candidate data element as part of the results of the search.

9. The system of claim 1, further comprising:

an optical scanner for scanning data elements from a hardcopy document; and

an optical character recognition module electronically coupled to the optical scanner and to the search engine for extracting text information corresponding to at least one data element scanned by the optical scanner, the search engine searching the indexing information to locate the at least one data element corresponding to the text information and displaying indexing information corresponding to the at least one data element as part of the results of the search.

10. A system comprising:

a display for displaying information to a user;

a memory for storing indexing information corresponding to at least one data element that is part of content in a hardcopy document; and

a search engine electrically coupled to the display and the memory, for searching the indexing information to locate one data element of the at least one data element that is part of the content in a hardcopy document and displaying indexing information corresponding to the one data element as part of the results of the search, and wherein the search engine performs a boolean search of the indexing information to locate the one data element of the at least one data element.

11. A method comprising the steps of:

reading data elements from the content of a document;

creating an index table including index entries that are searchable by a search engine, each of the index entries identifying at least one of the data elements and its specific location in a hardcopy representation of the document, a representation of an index entry found by the search engine in the index table being displayable to a person to identify to the person the specific location of an associated at least one of the data elements in the hardcopy representation of the document; and

printing a compressed hardcopy representation of the index table in a 2-D barcode encoded form on a hardcopy document for

a 2-D barcode scanner to scan 2-D barcode encoded information from the 2-D barcode encoded form of the index table on the hardcopy document; and

a 2-D barcode decoder to decode the 2-D barcode encoded information from the 2-D barcode scanner for storing the decoded indexing information in memory, the indexing information being searchable by a search engine to find a requested data element in the hardcopy document.

12. The method of claim 11, wherein the compressed hardcopy representation comprises a 2-D barcode representation, and wherein the printing step prints a 2-D barcode representation of the index table on the hardcopy document.

13. A method comprising the steps of:

downloading, from a network server, indexing information comprising index entries that are searchable by a search engine, each of the index entries identifying at least one data element and its specific location in a hardcopy document;

storing the indexing information in a memory;

in response to a user request for a specific location of a data element in the hardcopy document, searching the indexing information to find an index entry that identifies the specific location in the hardcopy document of the requested data element; and

displaying to the user a representation of the found index entry to identify to the user the specific location in the hardcopy document of the requested data element; and

wherein the indexing information is stored in the network server after being created from at least one of reading and scanning at least one of a 2-D barcode encoded information from a hardcopy document and a representation of the hardcopy document.

14. The method of claim 13, wherein the downloading step comprises the step of downloading the indexing information via the Internet from a web server.

15. The method of claim 13, further comprising the step of accepting user input from a user to create a search query, the searching step searching the indexing information, in accordance with the search query, to locate at least one data element in a hardcopy document that includes the content.

16. A computer readable medium including computer instruction for:

downloading, from a network server, indexing information comprising index entries that are searchable by a search engine, each of the index entries identifying at least one data element and its specific location in a hardcopy document;

storing the indexing information in a memory;

in response to a user request for a specific location of a data element in the hardcopy document, searching the indexing information to find an index entry that identifies the specific location in the hardcopy document of the requested data element; and

displaying to the user a representation of the found index entry to identify to the user the specific location in the hardcopy document of the requested data element; and

wherein the indexing information is stored in the network server after being created from at least one of reading and scanning at least one of a 2-D barcode encoded information from a hardcopy document and a representation of the hardcopy document.

17. The computer readable medium of claim 16, further including computer instructions for:

accepting user input from a user to create a search query, and searching the indexing information, in accordance with the search query, to locate at least one data element in a hardcopy document that includes the content.

18. A computer readable medium including computer instructions for:

scanning a 2-D barcode information to extract indexing information comprising index entries that are searchable by a search engine, each of the index entries identifying at least one data element and its specific location in a hardcopy document;

storing the indexing information in a memory;

in response to a user request for a specific location of a data element in the hardcopy document, searching the indexing information to find an index entry that identifies the specific location in the hardcopy document of the requested data element; and

displaying to the user a representation of the found index entry to identify to the user the specific location in the hardcopy document of the requested data element; and

wherein the scanning step comprises the steps of;

scanning 2-D barcode encoded information from a hardcopy document; and

decoding the scanned 2-D barcode encoded information to extract the indexing information for storing the decoded indexing information in the memory.

19. The computer readable medium of claim 18, further including computer instructions for:

accepting user input from a user to create a search query, and searching the indexing information, in accordance with the search query, to locate at least one data element in a hardcopy document that includes the content.

20. A method comprising the steps of:

reading data elements from the content of a document;

creating an index table including index entries that are searchable by a search engine, each of the index entries identifying at least one of the data elements and its specific location in a hardcopy representation of the document, a representation of an index entry found by the search engine in the index table being displayable to a person to identify to the person the specific location of an associated at least one of the data elements in the hardcopy representation of the document; and

printing a compressed hardcopy representation of the index table associated with the hardcopy document that allows a searching assistant equipped with a computing system to read the hardcopy representation of the index table and to search the index entries to find an index entry that identifies the specific location in the hardcopy document of a data element requested by a user and to display a representation of the index entry to the user; and

wherein the compressed hardcopy representation of the index table is printed as barcode encoded information on a hardcopy document.

21. The method according to claim 20, wherein the compressed hardcopy representation of the index table comprises a 2-D barcode hardcopy representation of the index table.