Patent ID: 8768058

Claim:
A system for extracting textual information from a document containing text characters, comprising: a network interface for communicating with one or more remote systems over a network; a data processing system; and a program memory communicatively connected to the data processing system and storing instructions configured to cause the data processing system to implement a method for extracting textual information from images of a document containing text characters, wherein the method includes: receiving a plurality of digital images of the document over the network, the plurality of digital images being captured separately using a digital image capture device and including substantially the same image content; automatically analyzing each of the received digital images using an optical character recognition process to determine extracted textual data for each captured digital image; merging the extracted textual data for the received digital images to determine the textual information for the document, wherein differences between the extracted textual data for corresponding portions of the received digital images are analyzed to determine the textual information for corresponding portions of the document; and storing the textual information for the document in a processor-accessible memory, wherein the merging of the extracted textual data for the received digital images includes: analyzing the extracted textual data for the received digital images to determine corresponding portions of the textual data for the received digital images; analyzing the extracted textual data to identify portions of the textual data for the received digital images where the textual data extracted from at least one of the received digital images is different from the textual data extracted from the corresponding portion of another one of the received digital images; and analyzing the differences between extracted textual data for the received digital images to determine the corresponding portion of the textual information for the document.