Method and system for automatically and transparently archiving documents and document meta data

• US 6,704,118 B1
• Filed: 10/29/1999
• Issued: 03/09/2004
• Est. Priority Date: 11/21/1996
• Status: Expired due to Term

• Current Assignee: Ricoh Company Limited
• Original Assignee: Ricoh Company Limited
• Inventors: Hull, Jonathan J., Baxter, Michael, Peairs, Mark, Cullen, John, Piersol, Kurt
• Primary Examiner(s): Coles, Edward
• Assistant Examiner(s): Pokrzywa, Joseph R.
• Application Number:
  US09/430,377
• Time in Patent Office: 1,593 Days
• Field of Search: 358/1.15, 358/1.16, 358/1.17, 358/523, 358/524, 358/403, 358/407, 358/442, 358/443, 358/444, 358/468, 707/1, 707/10, 707/100, 707/102, 707/104.1, 707/204, 707/530, 399/8, 399/83
• US Class Current: 358/1.15
• CPC Class Codes: G06Q 99/00 Subject matter not provided for in other groups of this subclass
• CPC Class Codes: H04N 1/21 Intermediate information storage H04N1/387, H04N1/41 take precedence ; for control between transmitter and receiver or between image input and image output device H04N1/32358; indexing, editing G11B27/00
• CPC Class Codes: Y10S 707/99945 Object-oriented database structure processing
• CPC Class Codes: Y10S 707/99948 Application of database or data structure, e.g. distributed, multimedia, or image
• CPC Class Codes: Y10S 707/99953 Recoverability

Abstract

According to the present invention, an automatic archiving system that makes document archiving largely transparent to the user. In one embodiment, documents scanned in or printed during the course of office equipment operation are automatically archived. For example, an office local area network (LAN) may interconnect a copier, a printer, a facsimile machine, and a document management workstation. Whenever, a document is copied, printed, or faxed, a document image is archived by the document management workstation without further user intervention. A single user command results in the document being copied and archived, printed and archived, or faxed and archived.

Claims

1. A method for providing unconscious capture archiving of documents in an automated office environment in which electronic documents are transferred over a network coupling at least one input device and at least one document management workstation having at least one database disposed to receive electronic copies of said documents for archiving, the method comprising:

receiving an electronic document image data being transmitted over the network in response to a document being scanned by said at least one input device in response to a single user input command;

determining at least one meta data index, wherein the at least one meta data index comprises information related to the transmission of the electronic document image data over the network; and

causing the electronic image data to be stored in the at least one database along with said meta data index to perform the unconscious capture archiving, wherein the aforementioned steps are carried out without further input from the user notwithstanding the single user input command, and the aforementioned steps capture electronic document images of documents scanned and transferred over the network, wherein the at least one meta data index is usable to retrieve the stored electronic image data from the at least one database.

2. The method of claim 1 wherein the information related to the transmission of the electronic document image data over the network comprises at least one selected from:

a source device type, a creation time of said electronic representation, or a network address.

3. The method of claim 1 wherein the information related to the transmission of the electronic document image data over the network comprises at least one selected from:

at least one access permission, a direction of transit, a destination address of a machine on said network, a page size, a page orientation, a page transformation.

4. The method of claim 3 wherein said page transformation further comprises at least one selected from:

placing at least two pages side-by-side in reduced form, printing pages on two sides of a page, rotating a page about an angle, reducing a page, enlarging a page, altering a scanning resolution of a page, or adding a header or a trailer to a page.

5. The method of claim 1 further comprising:

computing said meta data index from said document.

6. The method of claim 5 wherein said computing said meta data index from said document further comprises at least one of:

computing a page size, computing an orientation, or computing a page transformation.

7. A system for providing unconscious capture archiving of documents, said system comprising:

a computer having a long-term storage medium; and

a network interconnecting the computer with devices that transfer image data onto the network via print or copy commands, said image data representing documents, and relay each one of said image data to be archived by the computer for storage on the long-term storage medium along with at least one meta data index in response to a single user input command, wherein the at least one meta data index comprises information related to the relay of each one of said image data to be archived, wherein the at least one metadata index is usable to retrieve the stored image data from the long-term storage medium;

wherein the image data to be stored in the long-term storage medium is relayed to the computer without further input from the user notwithstanding the single user input command, and the image data to be stored in said long-term storage medium is captured from documents being copied or printed without interruption of the copy or the print commands respectively.

8. The system of claim 7 wherein the information related to the relay of each on of said image data to be archived comprises at least one selected from:

a source device type, a creation time of said electronic representation, or a network address.

9. The system of claim 7 wherein the information related to the relay of each on of said image data to be archived comprises at least one selected from:

at least one access permission, a direction of transit, a destination address of a machine on said network, a page size, a page orientation, a page transformation.

10. The system of claim 9 wherein said page transformation further comprises at least one selected from:

placing at least two pages side-by-side in reduced form, printing pages on two sides of a page, rotating a page about an angle, reducing a page, enlarging a page, altering a scanning resolution of a page, or adding a header or a trailer to a page.

11. The system of claim 7 wherein said meta data index is computed from said document.

12. The system of claim 11 wherein said computed meta data index further comprises at least one of:

a computed page size, a computed page orientation, or a computed page transformation.

13. A computer program product for providing unconscious capture archiving of documents in an automated office environment in which electronic documents are transferred over a network coupling at least one input device and at least one document management workstation having at least one database disposed to receive electronic copies of said documents for archiving, the product comprising:

code for receiving an electronic document image data being transmitted over the network in response to a document being scanned by said at least one input device in response to a single user input command;

code for determining at least one meta data index, wherein the at least one meta data index comprises information derived from the transmission of the electronic document image data over the network;

code for causing the electronic image data to be stored in the at least one database along with said meta data index to perform the unconscious capture archiving, wherein the aforementioned steps are carried out without further input from the user notwithstanding the single user input command, and the aforementioned steps capture electronic document images of documents scanned and transferred over the network, wherein the at least one meta data index is usable to retrieve the stored electronic image data from the at least one database; and

a computer readable storage medium for holding the codes.

14. The computer program product of claim 13 wherein the information related to the transmission of the electronic document image data over the network comprises at least one selected from:

a source device type, a creation time of said electronic representation, or a network address.

15. The computer program product of claim 13 wherein the information related to the transmission of the electronic document image data over the network comprises at least one selected from:

at least one access permission, a direction of transit, a destination address of a machine on said network, a page size, a page orientation, a page transformation.

16. The computer program product of claim 15 wherein said page transformation further comprises at least one selected from:

placing at least two pages sideby-side in reduced form, printing pages on two sides of a page, rotating a page about an angle, reducing a page, enlarging a page, altering a scanning resolution of a page, or adding a header or a trailer to a page.

17. The computer program product of claim 13 further comprising:

code for computing said meta data index from said document.

18. The computer program product of claim 17 wherein said code for computing said meta data index from said document further comprises at least one of:

code for computing a page size, code for computing an orientation, or code for computing a page transformation.

19. A digital copier comprising:

a scanning engine, said scanning engine operatively disposed to receive at least one of a plurality of documents to produce image data;

an image processing unit that processes said image data to correct imaging errors introduced by said scanning engine;

a printing engine, said printing engine being operatively disposed to produce hardcopy of said image data;

an image data tap that relays said image data to a storage system to perform unconscious capture archiving, wherein responsive to receiving from said user at least one of a plurality of documents and receiving from said user a single user input command, said single input command entered by said user responsive to a plurality of options displayed to said user, said scanning engine performs a scanning operation on said document to form said image data, said image tap relays said image data, along with at least one meta data index, wherein the at least one meta data index comprises information related to the relay of the image data to said document storage system, wherein the at least one metadata index is usable to retrieve the relayed image data from the document storage system, and said printing engine prints a document based on said image data, wherein said scanning engine, image processing unit, printing engine and image data tap function without further input from said user notwithstanding said single user input command, wherein said scanning engine, image processing unit, printing engine and image data tap capture image data of each and every document inserted into said digital copier.