US 7,031,009 B2 · Use of e-mail for capture of document metadata

Abstract

This invention allows the use of standard e-mail systems by a document capture system to solicit document metadata from a user. The document capture system sends an e-mail to the user associated with the captured document. The e-mail body contains the names of the metadata properties supported by the repository system for the captured document. An attachment to the e-mail consists of a screen resolution image of the first page of the captured document to remind the user about the particular document for which metadata is being requested. The user edits a reply e-mail body to supply metadata values for each of the metadata property names. When the user sends the reply, the document capture system extracts the metadata values from the e-mail body and stores the supplied metadata values and the captured document into the repository.

Claims20

Dependent claims

A document capture system for use by a user, comprising:

a document capture device for delivering a scanned document from the user;
a scan server for receiving said scanned document from said document capture device;
a metadata acquisition service receiving a request from said scan server to acquire metadata;
a repository manager for receiving a request from said metadata acquisition service for a capability description;
and
an e-mail server for sending an e-mail formatted by said metadata acquisition service to the user wherein the user edits said e-mail by entering metadata values and sends said e-mail to said metadata acquisition service for storage and later retrieval by said repository manager.

3 more elements

Dependencies are inferred from the claim text.

Use of e-mail for capture of document metadata

Life of this patent

Use of e-mail for capture of document metadata

Life of this patent

Abstract

Claims20