Methods of storing and retrieving information, and methods of document retrieval
First Claim
1. A method of storing and retrieving information, comprising:
- storing multiple versions of a communication in a database, the storing multiple versions comprising;
creating a first version of the communication;
saving the first version of the communication to the database as a first data set, the saving utilizing software configured to save a first identifier code in the database associated with the first version of the communication;
fetching the first version of the communication from the database and changing at least a portion of the first version of the communication to form a second version of the communication; and
saving the second version of the communication to the database as a second data set, the saving utilizing software configured to save a second identifier code in the database associated with the second version of the communication;
publishing at least a portion of the first version of the communication together with the first identifier code; and
retrieving a selected one of the first and second versions of the communication from the database, the retrieving the selected one of the versions comprising;
providing the published first identifier code to a processor having data communication with the database, the processor being configured to utilize the first and second identifier codes to retrieve and compare the first and second data sets, the processor being further configured to recognize that multiple versions of the communication were saved to the database as multiple data sets and to prompt a user to select which of the multiple versions is to be displayed; and
utilizing the processor to send at least a portion of a selected one of the first and second data sets to an output device and to thereby display at least a portion of the selected one of the multiple versions of the communication stored on the database.
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Accused Products
Abstract
In one aspect, the invention encompasses a method of information storage and retrieval. A first communication is stored as data in a database with an identifier code. At least a portion of the data corresponding to the first communication is sent to a printer which prints a portion of the first communication together with the identifier code on a substrate. The first communication printed on the substrate is changed to form a second communication which is different from the first communication. The second communication is scanned with a scanning machine which digitizes the second communication and also digitizes the identifier code that had been printed on the substrate. Information is extracted from the digitized identifier code with a processor. The processor is in data communication with the database and is configured to utilize the extracted information to retrieve the first communication from the database. The digitized second communication is compared with the data of the first communication to identify differences between the second communication and the first communication.
127 Citations
11 Claims
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1. A method of storing and retrieving information, comprising:
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storing multiple versions of a communication in a database, the storing multiple versions comprising;
creating a first version of the communication;
saving the first version of the communication to the database as a first data set, the saving utilizing software configured to save a first identifier code in the database associated with the first version of the communication;
fetching the first version of the communication from the database and changing at least a portion of the first version of the communication to form a second version of the communication; and
saving the second version of the communication to the database as a second data set, the saving utilizing software configured to save a second identifier code in the database associated with the second version of the communication;
publishing at least a portion of the first version of the communication together with the first identifier code; and
retrieving a selected one of the first and second versions of the communication from the database, the retrieving the selected one of the versions comprising;
providing the published first identifier code to a processor having data communication with the database, the processor being configured to utilize the first and second identifier codes to retrieve and compare the first and second data sets, the processor being further configured to recognize that multiple versions of the communication were saved to the database as multiple data sets and to prompt a user to select which of the multiple versions is to be displayed; and
utilizing the processor to send at least a portion of a selected one of the first and second data sets to an output device and to thereby display at least a portion of the selected one of the multiple versions of the communication stored on the database. - View Dependent Claims (2, 3, 4, 5, 6, 7, 8)
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9. A method of document retrieval, comprising:
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providing a database having multiple versions of a document stored therein as data sets, the multiple versions having a common document specific code associated therewith in the database and having different version specific codes;
forming a hard copy of one of the versions of the document, the hard copy version being defined as a first version of the document, the hard copy having the common document specific code provided thereon in machine-readable format and having the version specific code provided thereon in machine-readable format;
reading the machine-readable format with a code-reading machine configured to extract the document specific code and version specific code from the machine-readable format;
providing the document specific code and version specific code extracted by the machine to a processor in data communication with the database, the processor being configured to extract at least a portion of a second version of the document from a data set corresponding to the second version of the document, wherein the second version is different than the first version;
sending a prompt from the processor to a user when the processor detects that multiple versions of the document are stored in the database; and
providing input from the user to the processor to indicate which of the multiple versions of the document is to have at least a portion extracted from the database.
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10. A method of document retrieval, comprising:
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providing a database having multiple versions of a document stored therein as data sets, the multiple versions having a common document specific code associated therewith in the database and having different version specific codes;
forming a hard copy of one of the versions of the document, the hard copy version being defined as a first version of the document, the hard copy having the common document specific code provided thereon in machine-readable format and having the version specific code provided thereon in machine-readable format;
reading the machine-readable format with a code-reading machine configured to extract the document specific code and version specific code from the machine-readable format;
providing the document specific code and version specific code extracted by the machine to a processor in data communication with the database, the processor being configured to extract at least a portion of a second version of the document from a data set corresponding to the second version of the document, wherein the second version is different than the first version;
the documents comprise multiple sub-components which can be independently updated;
the multiple sub-components have different component-identifying codes stored on the database to identify the sub-components and the versions of the sub-components;
the hard copy has some component-identifying codes provided thereon in machine-readable code which identify the sub-components displayed on the hard copy and the versions of such displayed sub-components;
the machine-readable code of the component-identifying codes on the hard copy is read by the code-reading machine;
the processor is configured to determine if different versions of any of the sub-components displayed on the hard copy are in the database; and
the extracted portion of the document corresponds to at least one sub-component. - View Dependent Claims (11)
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Specification