System and method for selecting electronic documents from a physical document and for displaying said electronic documents over said physical document

• US 7,530,023 B2
• Filed: 09/12/2002
• Issued: 05/05/2009
• Est. Priority Date: 11/13/2001
• Status: Expired due to Fees

• Current Assignee: Kyndryl Incorporated (Kyndryl Holdings, Inc.)
• Original Assignee: International Business Machines Corporation
• Inventors: Carro, Fernando Incertis
• Primary Examiner(s): Hutton; Doug
• Assistant Examiner(s): Tran; Quoc A
• Application Number:
  US10/495,236
• Publication Number:
  US 20050028092A1
• Time in Patent Office: 2,427 Days
• Field of Search: 715/512, 715/742, 715/754, 715/805, 709/232
• US Class Current: 715/754
• CPC Class Codes: G06F 16/93 Document management systems

Abstract

The present invention discloses a system and a method for selecting, accessing and retrieving directly from a physical (i.e., hard-copy) document, hypertext documents located on a user workstation or on one or a plurality of servers connected to a communication network, and for displaying the retrieved hypertext documents over said physical document. The information is accessed by the user simply by touching with a finger items (i.e., words, letters, symbols, pictures, icons, . . . ) that are highlighted on an electronic hypertext document displayed over the physical document. The method, for use in a user system comprises the steps of: —identifying a physical document, this physical document comprising one or a plurality of pages; —identifying a page of said physical document; —identifying and locating an electronic document associated with the identified page referring to a document hyperlink table; said document hyperlink table comprising for each page of the physical document the identification and location of an electronic document; —accessing and retrieving the electronic document associated with the identified page; —displaying the retrieved electronic document by means of an opto-touch foil placed over the identified page.

Claims

1. A method of selecting electronic information from a physical document, and for displaying said selected electronic information over this physical document, said method comprising:

identifying a physical document;

identifying a page of said physical document;

identifying and locating an electronic document associated with the identified page by referring to a document hyperlink table;

said document hyperlink table comprising for each page of the physical document the identification and location of an electronic document;

accessing and retrieving the electronic document associated with the identified page; and

displaying the retrieved electronic document by means of an opto-touch foil placed over the identified page in conjunction with providing at least partial content of the identified page for viewing via the opto-touch foil.

2. The method according to claim 1, wherein the electronic document associated with the identified page comprises one or more hyperlinked items, said method further comprising:

creating a page hyperlink table for the identified page;

identifying the one or more hyperlinked items in the electronic document associated with the identified page; and

for each identified hyperlinked item;

identifying and locating information associated with said identified hyperlinked item;

determining the position on the opto-touch foil of said identified hyperlinked item; and

storing the identification and location of the information associated with said identified hyperlinked item and the position of said identified hyperlinked item on the opto-touch foil in the page hyperlink table.

3. The method according to claim 2, further comprising:

aligning said opto-touch foil over said identified page of said physical document;

determining the position of a point pressed on said opto-touch foil;

identifying a selected hyperlinked item that corresponds to the position of the point pressed on said opto-touch foil by referring to the page hyperlink table;

identifying and locating information associated with the selected hyperlinked item by referring to the page hyperlink table;

accessing and retrieving the information associated with the selected hyperlinked item; and

displaying the retrieved information by means of the opto-touch foil aligned over the identified page.

4. The method according to claim 3, wherein the method is used in a user system that is connected to a communication network comprising one or more servers, and wherein the information associated with the hyperlinked items is located on said one or more servers or locally on the user system.

5. The method according to claim 4, wherein the information associated with the hyperlinked items is located on the user system.

6. The method according to claim 5, wherein identifying and locating information associated with the selected hyperlinked item by referring to said page hyperlink table comprises:

determining a destination address in the communication network where the information associated with the selected hyperlinked item can be accessed by referring to said page hyperlink table.

7. The method according to claim 6, wherein:

said communication network is an Internet Protocol (IP) network;

said servers are Web servers;

said user system comprises a Web browser;

said destination address is an Uniform Resource Locator (URL address); and

said information is a Web page.

8. The method according to claim 1, wherein the physical document is a hard-copy document or any type of physical surface such as an engraved, printed, painted, written surface, or any material such as paper, wood, plastic and of any form such as a newspaper, magazine, book, catalog, geographical map, photograph, painting.

9. The method according to claim 1, wherein the document hyperlink table associated with the physical document comprises additional information related to said document such as title, author, date and wherein the method further comprises:

accessing said additional information.

10. A system comprising:

an opto-touch foil;

a user system comprising;

means for selecting a page of the physical document;

means for retrieving an electronic document associated with the selected page; and

means for displaying the retrieved electronic document using the opto-touch foil placed over or under the selected page in conjunction with providing at least partial content of the selected page for viewing; and

a connection between said opto-touch foil and said user system.

11. The system according to claim 10, wherein the opto-touch foil is sensitive to the pressure exercised over any point of its surface and comprises a transparent film with light emitting elements for displaying electronic information.

12. A method for displaying selected electronic information on a physical document, the method comprising:

identifying a physical document;

selecting a page of the physical document;

retrieving an electronic document associated with the selected page; and

displaying the retrieved electronic document using an opto-touch foil placed over or under the selected page in conjunction with providing at least partial content of the selected page for viewing.

13. The method according to claim 12, wherein the retrieved electronic document is located through use of a lookup table.

14. The method according to claim 13, wherein the lookup table comprises a document hyperlink table that associates respective ones of a plurality of electronic documents with each page of a physical document.

15. The method according to claim 14, the method further comprising:

identifying a hyperlinked item in the electronic document associated with the selected page;

locating information associated with the identified hyperlinked item;

determining the position on the opto-touch foil of the identified hyperlinked item; and

storing both the location of the information associated with the identified hyperlinked item and the position of the identified hyperlinked item.

16. The method according to claim 15, further comprising:

placing the opto-touch foil over or under the identified page of the physical document;

identifying the position of a point pressed on the opto-touch foil;

identifying a selected hyperlinked item that corresponds to the identified position by referring to the stored position information;

locating information associated with the selected hyperlinked item by referring to the stored location information;

retrieving the information associated with the selected hyperlinked item; and

displaying the retrieved information by means of the opto-touch foil.