Patent ID: 7920753

Claim:
A method performed by a computing device having a memory and a processor for identifying an information pattern containing embedded position information in an image of a document, the method comprising: identifying high-contrast regions in an image of a document; obtaining a first threshold brightness value for distinguishing areas of the image that represent content; analyzing each area in the image to determine if a brightness value for the area is below the first threshold; designating areas in the high-contrast regions having a brightness value below the first threshold as areas representing content so as to identify content areas and non-content areas; obtaining a second threshold brightness value for distinguishing areas of the image that represent an information pattern; analyzing each non-content area in the image to determine if a brightness value for the area is below the second threshold; and designating non-content areas having a brightness value below the second threshold as pattern areas representing the information pattern wherein the information pattern contains embedded position information and is used to determine the position of the image relative to the document and wherein the identifying, analyzing, and designating are performed by the processor executing instructions stored in the memory.