Systems and methods for classifying payment documents during mobile image processing

• US 9,292,737 B2
• Filed: 03/15/2013
• Issued: 03/22/2016
• Est. Priority Date: 01/18/2008
• Status: Active Grant

• Current Assignee: Mitek Systems Incorporated
• Original Assignee: Mitek Systems Incorporated
• Inventors: Nepomniachtchi, Grigori, Kliatskine, Vitali, Kotovich, Nikolay
• Primary Examiner(s): Motsinger, Sean
• Application Number:
  US13/844,748
• Publication Number:
  US 20130287284A1
• Time in Patent Office: 1,103 Days
• Field of Search: None
• US Class Current: 1/1
• CPC Class Codes: G06Q 20/042 characterized in that the payment protocol involves at least one cheque
• CPC Class Codes: G06V 30/10 Character recognition
• CPC Class Codes: G06V 30/1448 based on markings or identifiers characterising the document or the area
• CPC Class Codes: G06V 30/2253 Recognition of characters printed with magnetic ink G06V30/2247 takes precedence
• CPC Class Codes: G06V 30/40 Document-oriented image-based pattern recognition
• CPC Class Codes: G06V 30/413 Classification of content, e.g. text, photographs or tables
• CPC Class Codes: G06V 30/418 Document matching, e.g. of document images

Abstract

Systems and methods are provided for processing an image of a financial payment document captured using a mobile device and classifying the type of payment document in order to extract the content therein. These methods may be implemented on a mobile device or a central server, and can be used to identify content on the payment document and determine whether the payment document is ready to be processed by a business or financial institution. The system can identify the type of payment document by identifying features on the payment document and performing a series of steps to determine probabilities that the payment document belongs to a specific document type. The identification steps are arranged starting with the fastest step in order to attempt to quickly determine the payment document type without requiring lengthy, extensive analysis.

Claims

1. A payment document classification system, comprising:

a communication unit which receives an image of a payment document captured by a mobile device;

a preprocessing unit which extracts at least one feature from the image;

a comparison unit which compares the at least one extracted feature with at least one known feature of a payment document type to determine a likelihood that the payment document matches the at least one payment document type, wherein the comparison unit is further configured to compare a plurality of extracted features with a plurality of known features in a series, starting with an extracted feature which requires the least computation time of the plurality of extracted features; and

a classification unit which classified the payment document as at least one payment document type based on the likelihood that the payment document matches the at least one payment document type.

2. The system of claim 1, wherein the at least one extracted feature is a location of a lock icon.

3. The system of claim 2, wherein the comparison unit compares the location of the lock icon with at least one known location of the lock icon on a payment document type, and wherein the classification unit classifies the payment document as at least one payment document type if the location of the lock icon matches the at least one known location.

4. The system of claim 1, wherein the at least one feature includes one or more connected components of the image of the payment document.

5. The system of claim 1, wherein the at least one feature includes one or more horizontal lines and one or more vertical lines.

6. The system of claim 1, wherein the comparison unit compares a plurality of extracted features with a plurality of known features in a sequence until one of the plurality of extracted features matches one of the plurality of known features.

7. The system of claim 1, further comprising a configuration unit where a user can configure a plurality of payment document types into a category of payment document types for classifying the payment document as belonging to the category of payment document types.

8. The system of claim 1, further comprising an image correction unit which receives the image of the payment document from the communication unit and corrects at least one aspect of the image of the payment document to produce a corrected image.

18. The payment document classification system of claim 1, wherein the at least one extracted feature is a geometric feature which includes an aspect ratio of the payment document.

9. A method of classifying a payment document, comprising:

receiving an image of a payment document captured by a mobile device;

extracting at least one feature from the image;

comparing the at least one extracted feature with at least one known feature of a payment document type to determine a likelihood that the payment document matches the at least one payment document type, wherein comparing further includes comparing a plurality of extracted features with a plurality of known features in a series, starting with an extracted feature which requires the least computation time of the plurality of extracted features; and

classifying the payment document as at least one payment document type based on the likelihood that the payment document matches the at least one payment document type.

10. The method of claim 9, wherein the at least one extracted feature is a location of a lock icon.

11. The method of claim 10, further comprising comparing the location of the lock icon with at least one known location of the lock icon on a payment document type and classifying the payment document as at least one payment document type if the location of the lock icon matches the at least one known location.

12. The method of claim 9, wherein the at least one feature includes one or more connected components of the image of the payment document.

13. The method of claim 9, wherein the at least one feature includes one or more horizontal lines and one or more vertical lines.

14. The method of claim 9, further comprising comparing a plurality of extracted features with a plurality of known features in a sequence until one of the plurality of extracted features matches one of the plurality of known features.

15. The method of claim 9, further comprising configuring a plurality of payment document types into a category of payment document types for classifying the payment document as belonging to the category of payment document types.

16. The method of claim 9, further comprising receiving the image of the payment document from the communication unit and correcting at least one aspect of the image of the payment document to produce a corrected image.

19. The method of claim 9, wherein the at least one extracted feature is a geometric feature which includes an aspect ratio of the payment document.

17. A payment document classification system, comprising:

a communication unit which receives an image of a payment document captured by a mobile device;

a preprocessing unit which extracts a plurality of features from the image;

a comparison unit which compares the plurality of extracted features with a plurality of known features of a payment document type in a series until one of the plurality of extracted features matches one of the plurality of known features, wherein the comparison starts with an extracted feature which requires the least computation time of the plurality of extracted features; and

a classification unit which classified the payment document as at least one payment document type when at least one extracted feature matches at least one known feature.