# US 11,308,724 B2 · Optical character recognition technique for protected viewing of digital files > Agents: this data is available as JSON from the patentgrep API and MCP server — see https://patentgrep.com/llms.txt - Number: US 11,308,724 B2 - Document ID: US11308724B2 - Status: Granted - Kind: B2 - Application number: 14/685,740 - Filed: 2015-04-14 - Published: 2015-10-08 - Granted: 2022-04-19 - Earliest claimed: 2005-08-17 - Assignees: Kurzweil Educational Systems, Inc. - Applicants: Mark S. Dionne - Inventors: Mark S. Dionne - Web page: https://patentgrep.com/patent/US11308724B2 ## CPC - G06F 21/10: Protecting distributed programs or content, e.g. vending or licensing of copyrighted material (protection in video systems or pay television H04N7/16) {; Digital rights management [DRM]} - G06V 30/224: of printed characters having additional code marks or containing code marks - G09B 21/006: {using audible presentation of the information} - G10L 15/26: Speech to text systems (G10L15/08 takes precedence) - G06F: ELECTRIC DIGITAL DATA PROCESSING (computer systems based on specific computational models G06N) - G06V: IMAGE OR VIDEO RECOGNITION OR UNDERSTANDING - G09B: EDUCATIONAL OR DEMONSTRATION APPLIANCES; APPLIANCES FOR TEACHING, OR COMMUNICATING WITH, THE BLIND, DEAF OR MUTE; MODELS; PLANETARIA; GLOBES; MAPS; DIAGRAMS (devices for psychotechnics or for testing reaction times A61B5/16; games, sports, amusements A63; projectors, projector screens G03B) - G10L: SPEECH ANALYSIS TECHNIQUES OR SPEECH SYNTHESIS; SPEECH RECOGNITION; SPEECH OR VOICE PROCESSING TECHNIQUES; SPEECH OR AUDIO CODING OR DECODING ## Abstract Unlocking digital content embodied in digital readable form on a digital media carrier includes receiving a scanned image of a page from scanning a physical copy of content, evaluating the scanned image; and if the scanned image corresponds to a selected page of the digital content, unlocking the digital content. ## Claims ### Claim 1 A method for unlocking, locked, first digital content embodied in digital readable form on a digital media carrier and associated with a printed publication, the method comprises: producing by a computing system a test that includes a page number of a randomly selected page of the printed publication for a user to scan; scanning a page with a scanner to provide to the computer system a scanned page; receiving by the computing system from a computing device a file that is an answer to the test, and which file includes second digital content; applying by the computing system optical character recognition (OCR) to the second digital content to produce a representation of the second digital content; comparing by the computing system, the produced representation of the second digital content to a stored version of the locked, first digital content, which stored version is related to a pre-established degree of gradation of optical character recognition to produce a comparison result; determining whether the comparison result corresponds to the stored version; and decrypting by the computing system the locked, first digital content embodied on the digital media carrier, when the comparison result is that the comparison result corresponds to the stored version to provide user access to the locked, first digital content. ### Claim 2 (depends on 1) The method of claim 1 wherein the stored version is a text file. ### Claim 3 (depends on 1) The method of claim 1 wherein the degree of gradation of optical character recognition used for the stored version is an arrangement of the text on the selected page, and comparing further comprises: applying by the computing system the optical character recognition to the received second digital content to produce data that represents an arrangement of text in the received second digital content; and comparing by the computing system the data representing the arrangement to the stored version of the arrangement to determine whether the result corresponds. ### Claim 4 (depends on 1) The method of claim 1 wherein the second digital content is a scanned image of the randomly selected page. ### Claim 5 (depends on 1) The method of claim 1 wherein scanning by the scanner comprises scanning with a digital camera or a web cam and the degree of gradation of optical character recognition used for the stored version of text is a pattern of color in the locked, first digital content. ### Claim 6 (depends on 1) The method of claim 1 wherein scanning, further comprises: scanning the page with the scanner to provide to the computer system the correct randomly selected page; and indicating the comparison result corresponds to the stored version. ### Claim 7 (depends on 6) The method of claim 6 wherein the locked, first digital content is unlocked to provide a text based searchable file. ### Claim 8 (depends on 2) The method of claim 2 wherein the degree of gradation of optical character recognition used for the stored version is a stored signature, and applying optical character recognition generates text, and from the text a generated signature is generated, with the generated signature being compared to the stored signature. ### Claim 9 (depends on 1) The method of claim 1 wherein the locked, first digital content is a book stored on a digital storage media and the physical copy of the digital media is a printed copy of the book. ### Claim 10 (depends on 1) The method of claim 1 wherein the file is a first file, and the method further comprises: applying by the computing system, speech synthesis to convert the text from the locked, first digital content that was unlocked into a second file that includes data indicative of synthesized speech. ### Claim 11 (depends on 10) The method of claim 10, further comprising: displaying an image representation of a portion of the locked, first digital content that was unlocked on a display of the computing device; and applying a highlighting indicia to an item in the displayed portion in synchronization with reading the item to the user. ### Claim 12 (depends on 10) The method of claim 10 wherein the locked, first digital content that was unlocked includes a book stored in a digital representation on the digital storage media and the printed publication is a printed copy of the book. ### Claim 13 (depends on 11) The method of claim 11 wherein displaying displays an image representation from the locked, first digital content that was unlocked, and the method further comprises: applying speech synthesis to convert the locked, first digital content that was unlocked into speech that is read aloud to the user, while applying a highlighting indicia to an item in the image representation in synchronization with reading the text. ### Claim 14 (depends on 1) The method of claim 1, further comprising: displaying a representation of a portion of the locked, first digital content that was unlocked on a display; using speech synthesis to convert text corresponding to the locked, first digital content that was unlocked into speech that is read aloud to the user, while applying a highlighting indicia to an item in the displayed portion in synchronization with text corresponding to the item being read. ### Claim 15 A non-transitory computer readable medium that tangibly stores executable computer instructions, for unlocking locked, first digital content embodied on a digital media carrier, the computer instructions for causing a machine to: produce a test that includes a page number of a randomly selected page of a printed publication to scan; receive second digital content from a user scanning a page with a scanner to provide to the computer system a scanned page; evaluate the received second digital content with respect to a stored version of a representation of the randomly selected page of the printed publication; and decrypt by the machine the locked, first digital content embodied on the media carrier, to unlock the locked, first digital content when the evaluated, received second digital content corresponds to the stored version of the randomly selected page of the printed publication to provide user access to the locked, first digital content. ### Claim 16 (depends on 15) The non-transitory computer readable medium of claim 15 wherein the stored version is text, and the instructions to evaluate further comprise instructions to: apply optical character recognition to the received second digital content to produce a text representation of the received second digital content; and compare the text representation to the stored version. ### Claim 17 (depends on 15) The non-transitory computer readable medium of claim 15 wherein a degree of gradation of optical character recognition is used for the instructions to evaluate the stored version is an arrangement of text in the selected page, and instructions to evaluate further comprises instructions to: apply optical character recognition to the received second digital content to produce data that represents an arrangement of text in the received second digital content; and compare the data representing the arrangement of text to the stored version of the arrangement. ### Claim 18 (depends on 15) The non-transitory computer readable medium of claim 15 wherein a degree of gradation of optical character recognition is used for the stored version of text, which is a pattern of color in the received second digital content, and instructions to evaluate further comprise instructions to: detect a pattern of color in the received second digital content. ### Claim 19 (depends on 18) The non-transitory computer readable medium of claim 18 wherein the locked, first digital content that is unlocked provide a text based searchable file. ### Claim 20 (depends on 15) The non-transitory computer readable medium of claim 15 wherein a degree of gradation of optical character recognition is used for the stored version of text, which is a signature, and further comprising instructions to: generate a signature from the received second digital content; and compare the generated signature to a stored signature that is the stored version. ### Claim 21 (depends on 20) The non-transitory computer readable medium of claim 20 wherein the locked, first digital content that is unlocked provide a text file. ### Claim 22 (depends on 21) The non-transitory computer readable medium of claim 21 further comprising instructions to: apply speech synthesis to convert the text from the locked, first digital content that was unlocked into speech that is read aloud to the user. ### Claim 23 (depends on 21) The non-transitory computer readable medium of claim 21 further comprising instructions to: display a representation of a portion of the locked, first digital content that was unlocked on a display; apply a highlighting indicia to an item in the displayed portion in synchronization with reading the item to the user. ### Claim 24 (depends on 15) The non-transitory computer readable medium of claim 15 wherein the locked, first digital content includes a book stored in a digital representation on the digital storage media and the physical copy of the digital media is a printed copy of the book. ### Claim 25 (depends on 24) The non-transitory computer readable medium of claim 24, wherein displaying, displays an image representation from the digital media carrier, and the computer program product further comprises instructions to: apply speech synthesis to convert the locked, first digital content that was unlocked into speech that is read aloud to the user, while apply a highlighting indicia to an item in the image representation in synchronization with reading the text. ### Claim 26 (depends on 15) The non-transitory computer readable medium of claim 15, further comprising instructions to: display a representation of a portion of the locked, first digital content that was unlocked on a display; apply speech synthesis to convert text corresponding to the displayed portion of the locked, first digital content that was unlocked into speech that is read aloud to the user, while apply a highlighting indicia to an item in the displayed portion of the representation in synchronization with text corresponding to the item being read. ### Claim 27 An apparatus comprising: a computing processing device, including a processor device and memory coupled to the processor device; and a computer readable storage device storing a computer program product for unlocking locked, first digital content embodied in digital readable form on a digital media carrier, the computer program product comprises instructions for causing the processor device to: produce a test that includes a page number of a randomly selected page of the printed publication to scan; receive second digital content from a user scanning a page with a scanner to provide to the computer system a scanned page; evaluate the received second digital content with respect to a stored representation of the locked, first digital content that corresponds to the randomly selected page of the printed publication; and decrypt by the computing processing device the locked, first digital content embodied in digital readable form on the digital media carrier when the received second digital content corresponds to the stored representation of the locked, first digital content to provide user access to the locked, first digital content. ### Claim 28 (depends on 27) The apparatus of claim 27 wherein the computer program product further comprises instructions to: apply optical character recognition to the received image to produce a text representation of the received image; and compare text representation to the stored representation. ### Claim 29 (depends on 27) The apparatus of claim 27 wherein a degree of gradation of optical character recognition is used for the stored representation is an arrangement of features in the selected page, and the computer program product further comprises instructions to: apply optical character recognition to the received second digital content to produce data that represents an arrangement of features in the received second digital content; and compare the data representing the arrangement of features to the stored version of the arrangement to determine whether the received second digital content corresponds to the selected page of the printed publication. ### Claim 30 (depends on 27) The apparatus of claim 27, wherein a degree of gradation of optical character recognition is used, which is a pattern of color, the computer program product further comprising instructions to: detect a pattern of color in the received second digital content. ### Claim 31 (depends on 27) The apparatus of claim 27 wherein the locked, first digital content that is unlocked provides a text based searchable file. ### Claim 32 (depends on 27) The apparatus of claim 27 wherein the computer program product further comprises instructions to: apply speech synthesis to convert the text from the locked, first digital content that was unlocked into speech that is read aloud to the user. ### Claim 33 (depends on 27) The apparatus of claim 27 wherein the computer program product further comprises instructions to: display a representation of a portion of the locked, first digital content that was unlocked on a display; and apply a highlighting indicia to an item in the displayed portion in synchronization with reading the item to the user. ### Claim 34 (depends on 27) The apparatus of claim 27, wherein displaying, displays an image representation from the locked, first digital content that was unlocked, and the computer program product further comprises instructions to: apply speech synthesis to convert the locked, first digital content that was unlocked into speech that is read aloud to the user, while apply a highlighting indicia to an item in the image representation in synchronization with reading the text.