Systems and Methods for Tracing the Source of Printed Pages
AssigneeHewlett-Packard Development Company, L.P.
InventorsRobert Alan Ulichney, Shivaun Albright, Matthew D. Gaubatz
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Abstract
Methods and systems are provided for tracing the source of a printed document. A method may include receiving a print job for printing a page having page content, generating a log of the print job, encoding the log using a mule image to produce a data-bearing halftone image, merging the data-bearing halftone image with the page content, and printing the merged data-bearing halftone image and page content to produce a printed document.
Claims20
A method, comprising:
- receiving a print job for printing a page having page content;
- generating a log of the print job;
- encoding the log using an input image o produce a data-bearing halftone image;
- merging the data-bearing halftone image with the page content;
- and
- printing the merged data-bearing halftone image and page content to produce a printed document.
The method of claim , wherein the input comprises a logo.
A method, comprising scanning a printed document having a data-bearing halftone image receiving a position of the data-bearing halftone image on the printed document;
- receiving an input image from which the data-bearing halftone image was generated;
- recovering data from the data bearing halftone image based on the input image;
- and
- generating a print job log from the recovered data.
A non-transitory tangible computer-readable medium comprising code, wherein the code comprises instructions for:
- generating a log of a print job for printing a page having page content;
- encoding the log with an input image to produce a data-bearing halftone image;
- merging the data-bearing halftone image with the page content;
- and
- printing the merged data-bearing halftone image and page content to produce a printed document.
Dependencies are inferred from the claim text.