System and method for collaborative annotation using a digital pen

• US 7,913,162 B2
• Filed: 12/20/2005
• Issued: 03/22/2011
• Est. Priority Date: 12/20/2005
• Status: Active Grant

• Current Assignee: Pitney Bowes Incorporated (Böwe Systec AG)
• Original Assignee: Pitney Bowes Incorporated (Böwe Systec AG)
• Inventors: Hansen, Gary G., Christoff, Michael, Jiang, Shen-Yuan, Coffy, Jean-Hiram
• Primary Examiner(s): Hutton; Doug
• Assistant Examiner(s): Mills; Frank D
• Application Number:
  US11/312,312
• Publication Number:
  US 20070143663A1
• Time in Patent Office: 1,918 Days
• Field of Search: 715/751
• US Class Current: 715/230
• CPC Class Codes: G06F 16/93 Document management systems
• CPC Class Codes: G06F 40/169 Annotation, e.g. comment data or footnotes
• CPC Class Codes: G06F 40/171 by use of digital ink
• CPC Class Codes: G06Q 10/10 Office automation; Time management

Abstract

A method and system for collaborative annotation by team members of a master document using a digital pen system is described. At least one hardcopy printout of the master document is printed on digital paper used with a digital pen system. Using the digital pen, annotations are made to the hardcopy representation. The user may then select which of the annotations may be shared with each of the particular team members. In another example, the user may select annotations for promotion onto an action item cover sheet.

Claims

1. A method for managing the annotation of a document comprising:

obtaining an original document;

making an original electronic version of the document available to an annotation manager system;

associating the original electronic version of the document with digital paper;

printing a plurality of hardcopies of the original electronic version of the document on the associated digital paper;

distributing the hardcopies to a plurality of team members;

receiving a plurality of annotations from the team members;

receiving selective sharing data for at least one selected annotations of the plurality of annotations from the respective team members that authored the respective annotation, wherein the selective sharing data comprises digital pen strokes on the associated digital paper that indicate a selective sharing mode and corresponding annotation selection pen strokes made in the vicinity of the at least one selected annotations;

associating each public annotation with a location in the original electronic version of the document and a group of team members allowed access to each respective public annotation; and

associating each non-public annotation with a location in a non-public electronic version of the document.

2. The method of claim 1, further comprising:

creating a new annotated version of the original electronic version of the document incorporating the public annotations.

3. The method of claim 2, further comprising:

incorporating annotation metadata into the new annotated version.

4. The method of claim 3, wherein,

the metadata includes a time and date associated with each annotation;

and

the metadata includes a user identification for each annotation.

5. The method of claim 1, further including:

anchoring at least one of the annotations to a paragraph of the original electronic version of the document.

6. The method of claim 1, further including:

determining if any annotations collide.

7. The method of claim 6, further including:

if annotations collide, determining if annotation priority can resolve the collision, and resolving the collision by ignoring the lower priority annotation.

8. The method of claim 7, further comprising:

if annotation priority cannot resolve the collision, modifying the annotations to remove the collision.

9. The method of claim 1, further comprising:

grouping a plurality of pen strokes into each of the plurality of annotations.

10. The method of claim 9, wherein:

the grouping step utilizes time and space data associated with each pen stroke.

11. The method of claim 1, wherein:

receiving selective sharing data for each of the plurality of annotations from the team members includes receiving permitted recipient data from a respective author of each respective annotation and the selective sharing data comprises digital pen strokes on the associated digital paper that encircle the at least one selected annotations.

17. The method of claim 1, further comprising:

grouping a set of pen strokes as an annotation using a relatedness parameter.

18. The method of claim 17, further comprising:

determining the relatedness parameter using spatial data related to the pen strokes.

19. The method of claim 17, further comprising:

determining the relatedness parameter using temporal data related to the pen strokes.

12. A method for managing the promotion of annotations on a digital paper document for a user comprising:

printing a hardcopy of the original electronic version of the digital paper document on associated digital paper;

receiving a plurality of annotations from the user by receiving user pen strokes that were placed on the hardcopy;

receiving a content promotion command indication from the user, wherein the content promotion command comprises user digital pen strokes made on the associated hardcopy that indicate a content promotion command and corresponding annotation selection user pen strokes that were placed on the hardcopy near at least one of the plurality of annotations to indicate content promotion selection of the at least one of the plurality of annotations;

determining which pen strokes indicate content promotion selection; and

rendering a duplicate copy of each selected annotation associated with the content promotion selection on a separate content promotion page of the document.

13. The method of claim 12, further comprising:

exporting action item data based upon the content promotion selection data.

14. The method of claim 12, further comprising:

incorporating annotation metadata into the rendered copy.

15. The method of claim 12, wherein,

each content promotion selection is rendered on the content promotion page in the order that the annotation appears in the document.

16. The method of claim 12, wherein,

each content promotion selection is rendered on the content promotion page in the order that the annotation was selected for promotion.