Methods and systems for initiating application processes by data capture from rendered documents

Abstract

Systems, apparatus and methods for implementing transaction applications using a handheld document data capture device are described herein. The handheld device captures information from a rendered document. The captured information is processed to identify an electronic document corresponding to the rendered document. Information captured from the rendered document by the handheld capture device is used to perform a transaction. In one embodiment, a portable scanner is used to select items from a catalog. Information scanned from the catalog is used to identify the catalog, the items to be purchased, and complete an order via the Internet.

Description

CROSS-REFERENCE TO RELATED APPLICATIONS [0001] This application is a Continuation-In-Part of U.S. patent application Ser. No. 11 / 004,637 filed on Dec. 3, 2004, which is hereby incorporated by reference in its entirety. [0002] This application is related to, and incorporates by reference in their entirety, the following U.S. Patent Applications, filed concurrently herewith: U.S. patent application Ser. No. ______, entitled DETERMINING ACTIONS INVOLVING CAPTURED INFORMATION AND ELECTRONIC CONTENT ASSOCIATED WITH RENDERED DOCUMENTS (Attorney Docket No. 435188075US1), U.S. patent application Ser. No. ______, entitled CONTENT ACCESS WITH HANDHELD DOCUMENT DATA CAPTURE DEVICES (Attorney Docket No. 435188018US1), U.S. patent application Ser. No. ______, entitled SEARCH ENGINES AND SYSTEMS WITH HANDHELD DOCUMENT DATA CAPTURE DEVICES (Attorney Docket No. 435188021US1), U.S. patent application Ser. No. ______, entitled TRIGGERING ACTIONS IN RESPONSE TO OPTICALLY OR ACOUSTICALLY CAPTURING KEYW...

AI Technical Summary

Problems solved by technology

If the printed document is a gateway to extra materials and functionality, access to such features can also be time-limited.

The paper document will, of course, still be usable, but will lose some of its enhanced electronic functionality.

This may be desirable, for example, because there is profit for the publisher in receiving fees for access to electronic materials, or in requiring the user to purchase new editions from time to time, or because there are disadvantages associated with outdated versions of the printed document remaining in circulation.

In some cases, a document will be available in electronic form, but for a variety of reasons may not be accessible to the user.

There may not be sufficient connectivity to retrieve the document, the user may not be entitled to retrieve it, there may be a cost associated with gaining access to it, or the document may have been withdrawn and possibly replaced by a new version, to name just a few possibilities.

The scanning device may also have very limited processing power or storage so, while in some embodiments it may perform all of the OCR process itself, many embodiments will depend on a connection to a more powerful device, possibly at a later time, to convert the captured signals into text.

Lastly, it may have very limited facilities for user interaction, so may need to defer any requests for user input until later, or operate in a “best-guess” mode to a greater degree than is common now.

For example, optical character recognition of text fragments is often prone to errors, unlike other representations of captured text fragments that may be used to search for and/or recreate a text fragment without resorting to optical character recognition for the entire fragment.

Many of the actions made possible by the system result in some commercial transaction taking place.

The user may capture a particular fragment of text knowing that some commercial opportunity will be presented to them as a result, or it may be a side-effect of their capture activities.

In a traditional paper publication, advertisements generally consume a large amount of space relative to the text of a newspaper article, and a limited number of them can be placed around a particular article.

For example, the opportunity to purchase a sequel to a novel may not be available at the time the user is reading the novel, but the system may present them with that opportunity when the sequel is published.

So

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