Information distribution system
AssigneeFirst Data Corporation
InventorJoseph S. Rosenthal
Life of this patent
Estimating the term…
Abstract
A subscription facsimile system of the type in which providers supply new documents for storing the images thereof in a centralized database. Subscribers register with a system as to one or more subject matter areas of interest. A processor cyclically scans the document database for new documents that have been added thereto. The processor correlates the subject matter of the newly added documents to the identity of the subscribers having an interest in the same. The new documents are then transmitted by way of facsimile to the subscribers who have registered an interest in such subject matter.
Claims20
An information distribution system, comprising:
- an information database for storing information, and to which new information can be added;
- a subscription database for storing an identity of each of a plurality of subscribers, and for storing an area of subject matter interest of each said subscriber;
- a processor programmed to periodically cause accessing of said information database to identify the new information that has been added thereto subsequent to a prior periodic accessing of said information database;
- and
- said processor being programmed to cause accessing of said subscription database to identity each subscriber having an interest in the new identified information, and said processor causing an automatic transmittal of the new identified information to respective subscribers having an interest therein, whereby the respective subscribers receive said new identified information without having specifically requested the same.
A method of distributing information, comprising the steps of:
- providing information to an information database from a plurality of information providers, each information provider being identified by a unique code;
- providing by each said information provider an identity of each subscriber who can request the information provided to said information database by the respective information provider;
- storing the information supplied by the information provider in the information database in association with a subject matter area thereof;
- storing the identity of each of a plurality of subscribers in a subscriber database, and storing a subject matter interest of each said subscriber;
- accessing the information database to determine subject matter areas and accessing the subscriber database to identify the subscribers having an interest in the subject matter area;
- and
- transmitting the information to the respective subscribers having an interest in the subject matter area thereof.
A document distribution system, comprising:
- data entry apparatus including a processor and a document database for receiving and storing data corresponding to document images, said processor being programmed to store in association for each document image a document identification code, a document title, a number of pages and a subject matter of the document;
- subscription entry apparatus including a processor and a subscription database for receiving data from a plurality of subscribers, said processor being programmed to store in association with each subscriber a destination transmission number, a unique password, a subject matter area of interest, and a window of time in which information can be transmitted to the user;
- and
- subscription update apparatus including a processor programmed to periodically scan said document database and scan for the existence of any new document entered as data into said system, and programmed to correlate a subject matter of each new document to a corresponding subject matter area of content to one or more of said subscribers, and programmed to cause a transmission of each new document to each subscriber in which the document subject matter matches the subject matter area of interest of the subscriber.
Dependencies are inferred from the claim text.