Patent Application
20130016390
1. Field of the Invention
The present invention relates to a document transmission system and method, and particularly relates to a document transmission system and method utilizing a network transmission system and a symbol to transmit a document.
2. Description of the Prior Art
A conventional facsimile (fax) machine is connected to a telephone network, and transmits a document to a target receiver such as a printer or another facsimile machine via the telephone network. In this case, a telephone number of the target receiver must be dialed before faxing the document, and therefore, a user must prepare the telephone number and further make sure that the telephone number is correct before faxing the document. The necessity of these steps causes some inconvenience to a user. Furthermore, a facsimile machine needs a telephone network, which is also inconvenient.
Or, the document in the computer can be transmitted in the electronic file form, via the connection between the computer and the fax machine. However, it is inconvenient for the user since the concept to be transmitted must be transformed to the electronic file first. In normal life, there are still many situations that the document needs to be transmitted in a non-electronic file form. For example, if the concepts to be transmitted are printed on a paper, the user needs a transforming machine such as a scanner to transform the paper to the electronic file first before faxing the document. Such operation may cause inconvenience to the user. Besides, such operation is especially inconvenient for the user who is unfamiliar with a computer, since the connection and the fax machine must be established first.
Therefore, one objective of the present invention is to provide a convenient document transmitting system (i.e. a fax system), which can transmit a document to a target receiver according to a symbol on the document instead of a telephone number, a fax number or an printer address.
Besides, another objective of the present invention is to provide an intuitive document fax system, which can be utilized to a fax system for multiple users. Such fax system can transmit the symbol on a paper document, and at least one of the user identifying code and a machine identifying code of the faxing device to be identified. By this way, the paper document can be transmitted to the correct document receiver for the correct receiver.
One embodiment of the present invention provides a document transmission system, which includes a document provider, a document receiver, a storage device, an identifying device, and a transmission system. The document provider is utilized for providing a document having a symbol, which is visually identifiable. The document receiver is utilized for receiving the document, wherein the document receiver has an address. The storage device is configured to store an address book that is related to the symbol mapping to the address. The identifying device is utilized for identifying the symbol and for mapping the symbol with the address book to obtain the address referring to the symbol . The transmission system is utilized for transmitting the document from the document provider to the document receiver according to the address.
Another embodiment of the present invention provides a document transmission method, which corresponds to the above-mentioned document transmission system. The method includes (a) utilizing a document provider to provide a document having a symbol, which is visually identifiable, wherein the symbol and the document are recorded on a single paper; (b) utilizing an identifying device to identify the symbol and map the symbol to an address book to obtain an address; and (c) transmitting the document to a document receiver according to the address.
In one preferred embodiment, the identifying device includes a optical characteristic reorganization (OCR) device.
In one preferred embodiment, the document provider is equipped with the identifying device and the storage device.
In one preferred embodiment, the document provider or the document receiver is one of a facsimile machine, a scanner and a multifunction machine.
In one preferred embodiment, the document provider further provides a provider identifying code corresponding to the address book, where, further with reference to the provider identifying code, the identifying device maps the symbol to the address book to obtain the address.
In one preferred embodiment, the document receiver automatically prints out the document when the document receiver receives the document
In one preferred embodiment, the document provider further provides a user identifying code corresponding to the address book, where, further with reference to the user identifying code, the identifying device maps the symbol to the address book to obtain the address.
In one preferred embodiment, wherein the transmission system is a network transmission system coupled to the document provider and the document receiver, and is configured for respectively providing network addresses to the document provider and the document receiver, and for transmitting the document from the document provider to the document receiver
In one preferred embodiment, the network transmission system is Internet or Intranet.
In one preferred embodiment, the document provider and the document receiver both include a document transmission protocol program.
In one preferred embodiment, the network transmission system includes a document transmission protocol program.
In one preferred embodiment, further comprises a server, coupled to the network transmission system, for buffering the document when the document receiver cannot receive the document, wherein the server is equipped with the identifying device and the storage device.
According to the above mentioned embodiments, a user can easily fax a document via a simple symbol instead of dialing a telephone number, and thereby the convenience of utilizing the fax machine is considerably increased.
These and other objectives of the present invention will no doubt become obvious to those of ordinary skill in the art after reading the following detailed description of the preferred embodiment that is illustrated in the various figures and drawings.
Certain terms are used throughout the description and following claims to refer to particular components. As one skilled in the art will appreciate, electronic equipment manufacturers may refer to a component by different names. This document does not intend to distinguish between components that differ in name but not function. In the following description and in the claims, the terms “include” and “comprise” are used in an open-ended fashion, and thus should be interpreted to mean “include, but not limited to . . . ”. Also, the term “couple” is intended to mean either an indirect or direct electrical connection. Accordingly, if one device is coupled to another device, that connection may be through a direct electrical connection, or through an indirect electrical connection via other devices and connections.
As shown in
If the document transmission system 100 utilizes a “point to point” mechanism to transmit the document from the document provider 101 to the document receiver 103, the document provider 101 and the document receiver 103 must have document transmission protocol programs (e.g. fax protocol programs) themselves. Also, if the document transmission system 100 utilizes a “routing” mechanism to transmit the document from the document provider 101 to the document receiver 103, the document transmission protocol program can be included in the network transmission protocol program provided for the network transmission system 105.
The first case is, the user wants to transmit the concepts hand-written or printed on the paper to a receiver, but forgets or doesn't exactly write the right fax number, the printer address or the multifunction machine address while transmitting the concepts. In this case, the present invention provides an intuitive document transmission system, which provides at least one address book in the storage device. The address book corresponds to a user, and the concepts of the address book includes at least one address relevant to the identifying symbol and corresponding to the receiver. For example, a fax number, a printer address or a multifunction machine address. It should be noted that the address book may be stored to other devices including storage space besides an independent storage device, such as the identifying device or the server.
The identifying symbol for a receiver can be the symbols or texts indicating the relation between the user and the receiver. For example, father/son/daughter, mother/son/daughter, abbreviated name/nick name for the receiver, name of the identification card for the receiver, or names for the user in other languages. Also, the identifying symbol for a receiver is a symbol that the user can understand who is the receiver when the user see it, rather than a symbol that must be identified by a machine such barcodes. One advantage for above-mentioned mechanism is the user can use a convenient tool at any time. For example, a user can directly utilize a normal pen to write the symbol to the paper document, and does not need to record the concepts on the papers without machine bar codes or other carriers. Additionally, the user can easily check if the receiver is the correct one via simply taking a look at the symbol. That is, such a symbol is visually identifiable. By this way, it can be avoided that the user remember a wrong phone number or dial a wrong phone number. Besides, such symbol can be easily identified for both the user and the machine. Therefore, a normal text identifying system can sufficiently identify concepts of the identifying symbol, no high cost or complicated decoding mechanism or equipments are needed. Also, the user can write names, nicknames or titles for multiple receivers, thus concepts of the document can be transmitted to multiple receivers via only one time of transmitting.
As well as the above-mentioned system, the present invention further provides an easy document transmission method to transmit a document through the above-mentioned systems via only a symbol included in the document. The operations for dialing telephone numbers, remembering fax numbers, or selecting addresses for the printer or the multifunction machine are unnecessary.
In one embodiment, at least one document receiver address is included in an address book, which can reside at least one of the document provider 101, the identifying device 310, and the server 219, and the symbol can be identified and then mapped to an address included in the address book via the identifying device 310. Then the document is transmitted according to the mapped address.
As in the example shown in
The identifying device 310 can be an optical characteristic reorganization (OCR) device, such as a web camera. In this case, the identifying device 310 can further include other devices besides the optical characteristic reorganization device for the mapping function. Further more, the identifying device 310 can further include a program and perform the mapping function via the control circuit of the optical characteristic reorganization device or other devices. Please refer to
It should be noted that, although the document transmission method shown in
Please note that the address book can also be stored in the server 219. The second case besides the above-mentioned first case is, the server 219 further includes a plurality of address books corresponding to different users. In this case, the system according to the present invention can transmit an identifying code of the document provider 101 (provider identifying code) to the server 219. The address book corresponding to a specific identifying code can found based on the provider identifying code, and then a transmitting address of a specific receiver in the address book can be found accordingly.
Additionally, the third case is, the document provider has a mechanism that different users can utilize passwords thereof to log in the document provider 101 and use it. In this case, the system of the present application can transmit the information corresponding to the user and the symbol (user identifying code) to the storage device 310, to accordingly find correct receiver address in the correct address book. For example, the users A, B respectively utilizes pass words thereof to log in the document provider 101 at different timing, and transmits a document by faxing. The users A, B both utilizes “Bill” as the symbol, that is, the document should be transmitted to the addresses for different “Bill”s, for users A and B. The system of the present invention, can transmit information corresponding to users A and B such as the log in passwords, or the user names corresponding to passwords, and the symbol, to the storage device. After that, the document receiver address of “Bill”s for the users A and B can be accordingly found.
Step 401: Utilize a document provider to provide a document, wherein a visually identifiable symbol is on the document and the document is recorded on a paper.
Step 403: Utilize a document receiver to receive the document.
Step 405: Utilize a network transmission system for respectively providing network addresses to the document provider and the document receiver, and for transmitting the document from the document provider to the document receiver according to the network addresses.
Other detailed characteristics are already illustrated in the above-mentioned embodiments, and are therefore omitted here for brevity.
Step 501: Utilize a document provider to provide a document having a symbol, wherein the symbol is visually identifiable on the document and the document is recorded on a paper.
Step 503: Utilize an identifying device to identify the symbol and map the symbol to an address book to obtain an address, wherein the address relevant to the symbol is stored in the address book.
Step 505: Transmit the document to a document receiver according to the address.
Other detailed characteristics are already illustrated in the above-mentioned embodiments, and therefore are omitted here for brevity.
According to the above mentioned embodiments, a user can easily fax the document via a simple symbol instead of dialing a telephone number, significantly increasing the convenience of faxing documents. Also, the utilization of the network address system increases the application of the document transmission system.
Those skilled in the art will readily observe that numerous modifications and alterations of the device and method may be made while retaining the teachings of the invention. Accordingly, the above disclosure should be construed as limited only by the metes and bounds of the appended claims.
This application is a continuation in part application of applicant's earlier application, Ser. No. 12/198,856, filed Aug. 26, 2008, and is included herein by reference.
| Number | Date | Country | |
|---|---|---|---|
| Parent | 12198856 | Aug 2008 | US |
| Child | 13351230 | US |
