Method for retrieving texts which are similar to a sample text
AssigneeLucent Technologies Inc.
InventorsKenneth Ward Church, Jonathan Isaac Helfman, David Dolan Lewis
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Abstract
An information retrieval method wherein users may submit a query via a graphical bitmapping technique. The user provides an information retrieval system with a bitmap of a printed, written, or graphical query by either scanning the query with a graphical scanner, or employing a standard facsimile transmission machine. The information retrieval system then performs an optical image/character recognition process upon the received bitmap to determine the content of the query, information is then retried based upon the recognized characters and images. In a particular method of the invention, the user is provided with a bitmap of the retrieved information.
Claims14
A method for using a sample text to locate and retrieve texts similar to the sample text from a database, the method comprising the steps of:
- providing an image of the sample text for locating and retrieving texts similar to the sample texts;
- applying an optical character recognition process to the image of the sample test after providing the image of the sample text to obtain a sequence of charter codes which represents the sample text;
- automatically producing search parameters from the sequence of character codes;
- and
- using the search parametes to locate at least one text in the database which is similar to the sample text.
A method of retrieving information from an electronic database using a query, the query being represented by at least one of printed information, written information and graphical information, the method comprising the steps of:
- providing a bitmap of the query;
- perform optical image/character recognition upon the bitmap after providing the bitmap of the query to determine content of the query, the content of the query being at least one recognized image;
- and
- retrieving the information from the electronic database based upon the at least one recognized image.
Dependencies are inferred from the claim text.