Image analysis – Pattern recognition – On-line recognition of handwritten characters
Reexamination Certificate
1999-10-05
2003-01-07
Mancuso, Joseph (Department: 2623)
Image analysis
Pattern recognition
On-line recognition of handwritten characters
C382S189000, C382S315000, C345S173000, C345S179000, C178S018030
Reexamination Certificate
active
06504956
ABSTRACT:
BACKGROUND OF THE INVENTION
1. Field of the Invention
The present invention relates to digital electronic notetaking, and more particularly to apparatus and methods for digitally capturing handwritten notes.
2. Description of Related Art
In the mid-1970s, a scientist at the Minnesota Mining and Manufacturing Company (“3M”) of St. Paul, Minn. took two common materials, adhesive and paper, and combined them to create a useful office product, Post-it® Notes. The first Post-it Notes products were introduced in the United States in 1980 and in Europe in 1981. These are small pieces of paper on which one can jot down a note. The individual Post-it Notes sheets are self-stick and removable and can be stuck to a desk, a computer monitor, a refrigerator, and most other common surfaces. The 3M Company sells the Post-it Notes in different sizes and colors; for example, 3″×3″ as well as 2″×1.5″ are very popular sizes, and yellow, green, orange, purple, and pink are some of the colors used today. In fact, Post-it Notes are available in 29 colors and in 56 shapes and 27 sizes, and can be dispensed from 22 different dispensers. That makes for millions of possible combinations. In addition, Post-it Notes are available with 20 Microfragrance™ encapsulated fragrances, creating aromatic combinations.
Post-it Notes are very popular. In an office environment, it is quite common for example to have a company worker jot down a note on a Post-it Note and stick it on the computer monitor or on the chair of a co-worker. Some of the uses of Post-it Notes are as follows: jot down a note as a reminder for a given event; jot down a note for a colleague; write a phone number; jot down a note, address or phone number while talking on the phone. Post-it Notes are popular at home, where it is quite common for members of a family to leave each other a Post-it note on the refrigerator. Students use Post-it Notes as bookmarks. Lawyers use Post-it Notes to annotate documents. Post-it Notes have become very popular and are used today in a myriad of ways.
With the advent of the computer technology and the Internet, a need for electronically storing notes, organizing notes and sending electronically notes to co-workers or to family members has developed. Various approaches for addressing this need have been developed, including products such as Microsoft® Outlook™ E-mail and personal information manager. However, present day computing devices are input challenged. Consider the personal computer (“PC”), for instance, which offers as a primary input interface the keyboard and the mouse. Other types of input devices are exemplified by the CrossPad™ portable digital notepad and by graphics tablets, but these types of input devices have limited applications.
The CrossPad™ portable digital notepad, which is available from A.T. Cross Company of Lincoln, R.I., empowers a user to capture his or her thoughts with ink on paper, and to store the writings digitally in the memory of the notepad. Many pages of notes can be stored in the memory of the digital notepad, and an existing page can be added to by opening the desired digital page using controls on the digital notepad, and then replacing the correct actual inked physical page over the pad. The digital page is not viewable in real time. Instead, the digital notes are transferred from the memory of the notepad to the user's PC over a thin cable that connects to the RS232 port on the PC. Using Ink Manager software available from IBM Corporation of Armonk, N.Y., the user is able to use his or her personal computer to look at the digital notes, to organize the digital notes in one place in “notebook” files, to assign keyword, bookmark, and date to notes and search them, to convert selected words and phrases to text, to cut and paste notes or sketches into a variety of Microsoft® Windows® operation system applications, and to share notes by e-mail directly from the PC.
One type of marking device known as the Future Pen uses a spatial sensing system (accelerometers) to track the pen's position and an “inkwell” to synchronize files on the pen with desktop based applications. See, e.g., British Telecommunications PLC, Future Pen Overview, http://innovate.bt.com/showcase/future_pen/index.htm, Oct. 4, 1999; British Telecommunications PLC, Future Pen Whitepaper, http://innovate.bt.com/showcase/future_pen/index.htm, Oct. 4, 1999.
Graphics tablets are available from a variety of manufacturers and are widely used by computer aided design workers and graphical artists to create graphical works. Graphics tablets are commonly electromagnetic, having an active stylus that is pressed against a flat surface to create pen strokes that are displayed on the screen of a computer as they are made. Some graphics tablets sense pen pressure and tip angle so that the creator of the work can create a variety of different line widths and intensities. Graphics tablets typically are used for input into graphics and CAD applications.
To capture and store handwritten notes such as Post-it Notes on a PC, one may scan them using a scanner cabled to the personal computer. The scanning process in particular quickly becomes unworkable as the frequency and diversity of notes increase, which include quick notes while attending meetings and while working, and random bits of information such as telephone numbers, directions, or telephone conversation notes.
In an effort to replicate the Post-it Note experience on a personal computer despite the input limitations thereof, the 3M Company has developed Post-it Software Notes that uses the keyboard for data entry and runs on IBM compatible PCs with Microsoft Windows operating system version 3.1 or higher. This product allows a computer user to use a computer keyboard and mouse to type a note and electronically “stick” it in the desktop window. Using the computer keyboard and mouse as appropriate, a user may do many other useful things, such as, for example, create memoboards on which multiple notes can be attached, organize notes on customized memoboards, set an alarm for each note, cause each note to be date and time stamped (automatically if desired), search for notes, organize notes in alphabetical order or by date, change the color of a note or the color of the memoboard, and attach a note to a Microsoft Application such as Word or Exel. In an office environment where the computers are connected directly to a LAN running TCP/IP network protocol, the 3M Post-it Software Notes allows a user to pop-up a note on a co-worker's computer and share notes and memoboards with co-workers.
The 3M Post-it Software Notes is a useful tool for computer proficient users who are comfortable with keyboard and mouse entry of data in the performance of tasks for which conventional input devices such as keyboard and mouse are satisfactory. However, the tool is inconvenient for users who are not comfortable with computers, and is not useful for some tasks such as sketching and writing in foreign languages that are not supported by keyboard data entry.
SUMMARY OF THE INVENTION
One embodiment of the invention is a note capture apparatus comprising a structural supporting medium; a notepad mounted on the structural supporting medium, the notepad comprising a plurality of stacked adhesive-backed note sheets; a handwriting digitizer disposed proximate to the note pad; and a communications port.
Another embodiment of the invention is a method of capturing handwritten notes from a notepad onto an image capture device, comprising creating a virtual note on the image capture device, the virtual note being a representation of a sheet of the notepad; detecting a pen action resulting from a stroke of a pen on the notepad sheet; digitizing the pen stroke to obtain a digital representation thereof, in real time with the pen stroke; capturing the digital representation of the pen stroke on the virtual note, in real time with the pen stroke; and associating the virtual note with a virtual document existing on the image capture device.
A further embodiment
Challa Nagesh
Gannage Michel E.
Gobburu Venkata T.
Dastouri Mehrdad
Dorsey & Whitney LLP
Ecrio Inc.
Mancuso Joseph
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