Patent ID: 7502508

Claim:
A process of associating annotations with a document having a document identifier, the process comprising: printing an encoded version of a document identifier on a document, the encoded version of the document identifier comprising an encoded data stream, the data stream comprising a combination of a first and second graphical patterns, the first graphical pattern comprising at least one row of dark images followed by at least one row of light images, the second graphical pattern comprising at least one column of dark images followed by at least one column of light images, wherein the first graphical pattern represents a first bit of a data stream, wherein the second graphical pattern represents a second bit of the data stream, wherein the first and second graphical patterns are juxtaposed together to form an overall graphical pattern, wherein a type of shape is absent at intersections of individual graphical patterns, and wherein the absence of the type of shape in the overall graphical pattern provides orientation information for the document identifier; capturing a portion of the encoded version of the document identifier with a camera associated with a pen, wherein the camera captures the graphical patterns of the portion of the encoded version of the document identifier at a non-predefined angle relative to the encoded version of the document identifier; decoding the portion of the encoded version of the document identifier by rotating the portion of the encoded version of the document identifier until determining an orientation at which there is a lack of the type of shape within the portion of the encoded version of the document identifier; identifying the document identifier from the portion of the encoded version of the document identifier; identifying the document associated with the document identifier; and associating annotations created by the pen with the document identified by the document identifier.