Patent ID: 8314964

Claim:
An image processing apparatus having a reading unit for reading and processing an original document or an information-added document based on the original document and having information added by each operator, the image processing apparatus comprising: an authentication unit configured to authenticate a user that instructs reading of the original document or the information-added document to the reading unit; a decoding unit configured to decode additional information added to the information-added document read by the reading unit; an extraction unit configured to extract image data of the original document, user information of a user who added information to the original document or the information-added document, and position information used for determining a position where information is added to the original document from the additional information decoded by the decoding unit; a generation unit configured to generate additional information to be newly added to the information-added document based on the image data of the original document extracted by the extraction unit, difference information based on a difference between the image data of the original document and image data obtained by the reading unit reading the information-added document, user information of the user who instructed the reading of the original document or the information-added document, and position information used for determining the position of the added information; a transmission unit configured to transmit the image data obtained by the reading unit reading the information-added document and the additional information generated by the generation unit to a designated next operator; a determination unit configured to determine whether position information included in the additional information to be newly added generated by the generation unit and an information-added area based on the position information extracted by the extraction unit overlap; and a notification unit configured to notify a previous operator who is determined based on the extracted user information of the image data based on the original document, the difference information based on the information-added document, and the user information of the user who added the information if the position information and the information-added area are determined by the determination unit to overlap.