Automated document processing system and method
First Claim
1. A document processing system for accepting bank notes and financial institution documents, comprising:
- an input receptacle receiving bank notes and financial institution documents;
an image scanner;
a discrimination unit;
a transport mechanism coupled to the input receptacle adapted to receive the bank notes and financial institution documents from the input receptacle and transport the financial institution documents for imaging by the image scanner and the bank notes or discriminating by the discrimination unit;
an output receptacle receiving the bank notes and the financial institution documents from the transport mechanism after being transported past the discrimination unit and the full image scanner;
the image scanner being adapted to obtain images of the financial institution documents, optically recognize fields within the financial institution documents and to extract information from the fields;
the discrimination unit being adapted to obtain the denomination of the bank notes; and
an interface adapted to communicate with an accounting system, the accounting system being adapted to update financial accounts associated with the financial institution documents and the bank notes.
1 Assignment
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Accused Products
Abstract
A document processing system comprises an input receptacle for receiving documents. A transport mechanism receives the documents from the input receptacle and transports the documents past a full image scanner and a discrimination unit. An output receptacle receives the documents from the transport mechanism after being transported past the full image scanner and the discrimination unit. The full image scanner includes means for obtaining a full video image of said documents, means for obtaining a image of a selected area of said documents, and means for obtaining information contained in said selected area of said document. The discrimination unit includes means for determining the authenticity of said document. A system controller directs the flows of documents over the transport mechanism.
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Citations
101 Claims
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1. A document processing system for accepting bank notes and financial institution documents, comprising:
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an input receptacle receiving bank notes and financial institution documents;
an image scanner;
a discrimination unit;
a transport mechanism coupled to the input receptacle adapted to receive the bank notes and financial institution documents from the input receptacle and transport the financial institution documents for imaging by the image scanner and the bank notes or discriminating by the discrimination unit;
an output receptacle receiving the bank notes and the financial institution documents from the transport mechanism after being transported past the discrimination unit and the full image scanner;
the image scanner being adapted to obtain images of the financial institution documents, optically recognize fields within the financial institution documents and to extract information from the fields;
the discrimination unit being adapted to obtain the denomination of the bank notes; and
an interface adapted to communicate with an accounting system, the accounting system being adapted to update financial accounts associated with the financial institution documents and the bank notes. - View Dependent Claims (2, 3, 4, 5, 6, 7, 8, 9, 10, 11, 12, 13, 14, 15, 16, 17, 18, 19, 20, 21, 22, 23, 24, 25, 26, 27, 28)
a display for displaying images obtained by the image scanner; and
a data entry device for user input of field information not optically recognized by the image scanner.
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26. The document processing system of claim 1 wherein the financial institution documents are checks, and wherein the extracted optically recognized field information comprises check monetary value, and wherein the accounting system updates the financial account to account for the check monetary values and the currency bill denominations.
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27. The document processing system of claim 26 wherein the accounting system update is an account crediting update.
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28. The document processing system of claim 26 wherein the accounting system update is an account debiting update.
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29. A document processing method, comprising:
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receiving bank notes and financial institution documents in an input receptacle;
transporting the bank notes and financial institution documents from the input receptacle to an output receptacle;
obtaining images of the financial institution documents;
optically recognizing fields within the financial institution documents;
extracting information from the fields;
obtaining the denomination of the bank notes;
communicating with an accounting system;
updating, by the accounting system, of financial accounts associate with the financial institution documents and the bank notes. - View Dependent Claims (30, 31, 32, 33, 34, 35, 36, 37, 38, 39, 40, 41, 42, 43, 44, 45, 46, 47, 48, 49, 50, 51, 52, 53, 54, 55, 56)
transporting the financial institution documents for imaging by an image scanner; and
transporting the bank notes for discriminating by a discrimination unit.
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31. The document processing method of claim 29, wherein the output receptacle is a single bin.
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32. The document processing method of claim 29, wherein the output receptacle is a plurality of bins.
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33. The document processing method of claim 32, wherein one of the plurality of bins is an off sort bin.
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34. The document processing method of claim 29, further comprising the step of sending the images of the financial institution documents to the accounting system.
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35. The document processing method of claim 29, wherein the accounting system is a deposit system.
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36. The document processing method of claim 29, wherein the accounting system is a payment system.
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37. The document processing method of claim 29, wherein the financial institution documents and the bank notes have wide and narrow dimensions and the step of transporting includes the step of transporting the financial institution documents and the bank notes with their narrow dimension parallel to a direction of transport.
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38. The document processing method of claim 29, wherein the financial institution documents and the bank notes have wide and narrow dimensions and the step of transporting includes the step of transporting the financial institution documents and the bank notes with their wide dimension parallel to a direction of transport.
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39. The document processing method of claim 29, further including the step of determining the authenticity of the bank notes.
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40. The document processing method of claim 29, wherein the financial institution documents are checks and deposit slips.
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41. The document processing method of claim 29, wherein the financial institution documents are transfer slips.
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42. The document processing method of claim 29, wherein the financial institution documents have first and second surfaces and the step of obtaining images comprises the step of obtaining images of the first and second surfaces.
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43. The document processing method of claim 29, wherein the output receptacle comprises two bins.
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44. The document processing method of claim 43, wherein one of the two bins is an off sort bin.
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45. The document processing method of claim 29, further comprising the step of flagging financial institution documents and bank notes meeting or failing to meet predetermined criteria.
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46. The document processing method of claim 45, wherein the step of flagging comprises the step of suspending transport so that the flagged document is located at a predetermined position.
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47. The document processing method of claim 29, further comprising the step of restacking financial institution documents and bank notes in the output receptacle.
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48. The document processing method of claim 29, wherein the steps of obtaining images and obtaining denomination occur at a rate of at least 800 documents per minute.
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49. The document processing method of claim 29, wherein the step of obtaining denomination is capable of discriminating bank notes from multiple countries.
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50. The document processing method of claim 29, wherein the step of obtaining images comprises the step of obtaining images of the bank notes.
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51. The document processing method of claim 29 wherein the step of updating by the accounting system further includes the step of updating financial accounts associated with the financial institution documents and the bank notes substantially immediately without human intervention.
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52. The document processing method of claim 29 wherein the financial institution document images are video images.
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53. The document processing method of claim 29 further including the steps of:
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displaying images; and
entering by a user of field information which is not optically recognized.
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54. The document processing method of claim 29 wherein the financial institution documents are checks, and wherein the extracted optically recognized field information comprises check monetary value, and wherein the step of updating by the accounting system includes the step of updating the financial account to account for the check monetary values and the currency bill denominations.
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55. The document processing method of claim 54 wherein the accounting system update is an account crediting update.
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56. The document processing method of claim 54 wherein the accounting system update is an account debiting update.
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57. A bank note processing system, comprising:
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an input receptacle receiving bank notes;
an image scanner;
a discrimination unit;
a transport mechanism coupled to the input receptacle and adapted to receive the bank notes from the input receptacle and transport the bank notes past the image scanner and discrimination unit;
an output receptacle receiving the bank notes from the transport mechanism after the bank notes have been transported past the image scanner and discrimination unit;
the image scanner being adapted to obtain images of the bank notes, optically recognize fields within the bank notes and extract information from the fields; and
the discrimination unit being adapted to determine the authenticity of the bank notes. - View Dependent Claims (58, 59, 60, 61, 62, 63, 64, 65, 66, 67, 68, 69, 70, 71, 72, 73, 74, 75, 76, 77, 78, 79)
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80. A bank note processing method, comprising:
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receiving bank notes in an input receptacle;
transporting the bank notes received from the input receptacle past an image scanner and a discrimination unit;
receiving the bank notes in an output receptacle after the bank notes have been transported past the image scanner and discrimination unit;
obtaining images of the bank notes with the image scanner;
optically recognizing fields within the bank notes;
extracting information from the fields; and
determining the authenticity of the bank notes with the discrimination unit. - View Dependent Claims (81, 82, 83, 84, 85, 86, 87, 88, 89, 90, 91, 92, 93, 94, 95, 96, 97, 98, 99, 100, 101)
communicating with an accounting system; and
updating, by the accounting system, financial accounts associated with the bank notes.
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85. The bank note processing method of claim 84, wherein the step of communicating includes transmitting the images of the bank notes to the accounting system.
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86. The bank note processing method of claim 84, wherein the step of communicating includes transmitting a video image of the bank notes to the outside accounting system.
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87. The bank note processing method of claim 80, wherein the bank notes have wide and narrow dimensions and the step of transporting includes transporting the bank notes with their narrow dimension parallel to a direction of transport.
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88. The bank note processing method of claim 80, wherein the bank notes comprise first and second sides and the step of obtaining includes obtaining an image of the first and second sides.
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89. The bank note processing method of claim 80, wherein the output receptacle comprises two bins.
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90. The bank note processing method of claim 89, wherein one of the two bins is an off sort bin.
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91. The bank note processing method of claim 80, further comprising flagging bank notes meeting or failing to meet predetermined criteria.
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92. The bank note processing method of claim 91, wherein the step of flagging includes suspending document transport so that the flagged bank note is located at a predetermined position.
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93. The bank note processing method of claim 80, further comprising restacking bank notes in the output receptacle.
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94. The bank note processing method of claim 80, wherein the predetermined field is a serial number of the bank note.
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95. The bank note processing method of claim 80 wherein the extracted field information represents a monetary value of the bank notes.
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96. The bank note processing method of claim 95, further comprising communicating the monetary value information to an accounting system, and updating, by the accounting system, of financial accounts associated with the bank notes.
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97. The bank note processing method of claim 96 wherein the step of updating includes updating the financial accounts with the bank note value substantially immediately without human intervention.
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98. The bank note processing method of claim 80, wherein the step of transporting includes conveying the bank notes past the image scanner and discrimination unit at a rate of at least 800 documents per minute.
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99. The bank note processing method of claim 80, further including displaying a bank note image to a user.
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100. The bank note processing method of claim 80, wherein the step of optically recognizing includes recognizing a predetermined field in the bank note, and further including storing the extracted information from that predetermined field.
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101. The bank note processing method of claim 100, wherein the predetermined field is a serial number field of the bank note and the extracted information is a bank note serial number.
Specification