Patent Document ID: 7668372
Application ID: 10571239

Base Claim:
1. A method for collection of data from documents present in machine-readable form, the method performed by a computer system with a processor and memory, the method comprising the steps of: associating at least one already-processed document stored as a template and subsequently designated as a template document with a document to be processed that is designated as a read document, fields for data to be extracted being defined in the template document, wherein associating the at least one already-processed document with the document to be processed is performed by the processor executing instructions stored in the memory; automatically extracting data from the read document, the data contained in regions of the read document that correspond to the fields in the template document, wherein automatically extracting data is performed by the processor executing instructions stored in the memory; and if an error occurs, or if no suitable template document is associated: showing the read document on a screen and manually inputting fields in the read document from which the data are extracted; and storing the read document with field specifications as a new template document, or correcting the at least one already-processed template document corresponding to the newly input fields.

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Claim 2:
2. A method according to claim 1 wherein after the manual input it is checked whether the previous field specifications contained in the template document can be corrected according to the manually input field specifications, and if this is the case a corresponding correction of the template document is executed; the changes to the template document are then checked using the previously-processed read documents; and in the event that said check yields that not all previously processed read documents can be correctly read with the changes, the corrections are discarded and the read document with the manually input field specifications is stored as a new template document; and the read document with the manual field specifications is also stored as a template document when the contained field specifications of the previously used template document cannot be automatically corrected.