Patent ID: 7024016
Filing Date: 2006-04-04
Classification: G06K,G06T,G10L,H04N

Abstract:
1. A method of printing documents in a network, the network comprising a steganographic decoder and a plurality of printing devices, wherein the network includes or communicates with a database, and wherein the database associates electronic files with plural-bit identifiers, said method comprising: receiving a plural-bit identifier, wherein the plural bit identifier is obtained from steganographic encoded data that is decoded from optical scan data, and wherein the optical scan data corresponds to a steganographically encoded physical document, and wherein the steganographic encoding comprises the plural-bit identifier, and wherein said decoding is carried out by the steganographic decoder to retrieve the plural-bit identifier; determining an associated electronic copy of the document through communication with the database which, with at least reference to the plural-bit identifier, identifies the associated electronic copy of the document; determining at least one of the plurality of printing devices to render the electronic copy of the document to, wherein said determining at least one of the plurality of printing devices to render the electronic copy of the document to is influenced by at least one of a location of the steganographic decoder, a location of the physical document and a location of an optical scanner which generated the optical scan data; and rendering the electronic copy of the document to the determined printing device.