US 7,254,772 B2Granted

Systems and methods for visually representing the aging and/or expiration of electronic documents

AssigneeXerox Corporation

InventorsMark S. Penke, David Quijano, Marc Krolczyk

Life of this patent

Estimating the term…

Loading patent…

Abstract

Systems and methods enforce an expiration date for an electronic document and represent the expiration visually. The author may specify an expiration date for an electronic document. The expiration date may be either a date stamp or an integer representing a period of time from the creation date. The access to the document may be unavailable to a user after the expiration date. The visual representation of the document may age after a milestone date is reached. Random pixels may be added to the visual representation until the document expires. An algorithm may apply visual metaphor bitmaps to the document's visual representation. The bitmaps may be templates. The document may be mapped to the applied bitmaps. The document may be rendered illegible after the expiration date is reached.

Claims18

Dependent claims

A method for implementing an expiration condition of an electronic document, comprising:

determining an expiration condition for the electronic document;
comparing the expiration condition with a reference condition to determine if the expiration condition has been reached;
displaying on an electronic display an expiration document view as a visual metaphor of a document physical decrepitude of the electronic document when the comparison of the expiration condition with the reference condition indicates that the expiration condition has been reached;
and
displaying on an electronic display an active document view as a visual metaphor of a document physical decrepitude of the electronic document when the comparison of the expiration condition with the reference condition indicates that the expiration condition has not been reached;
displaying on an electronic display, if the expiration condition has been reached, an expiration document view as a visual metaphor of a document physical decrepitude of the electronic document;
and
displaying on the electronic display, if the expiration condition has not been reached, an active document view including a progressive document decrepitude view determined based on a comparison of the reference condition with a determined progressive document decrepitude milestone of the document,
wherein the visual metaphor of the document physical decrepitude is fixed in space on the electronic document.

6 more elements

A computer readable storage medium, comprising:

instructions for determining an expiration condition for an electronic document;
instructions for comparing the expiration condition with a reference condition to determine if the expiration condition has been reached;
instructions for displaying on an electronic display an expiration document view as a visual metaphor of a document physical decrepitude of the electronic document when the comparison of the expiration condition with the reference condition indicates that the expiration condition has been reached;
and
instructions for displaying on the electronic display an active document view as a visual metaphor of a document physical decrepitude of the electronic document when the comparison of the expiration condition with the reference condition indicates that the expiration condition has not been;
instructions for displaying on an electronic display, if the expiration condition has been reached, an expiration document view as a visual metaphor of a document physical decrepitude of the electronic document;
and
instructions for displaying on the electronic display, if the expiration condition has not been reached, an active document view including a progressive document decrepitude view determined based on a comparison of the reference condition with a determined progressive document decrepitude milestone of the document,
wherein the visual metaphor of the document physical decrepitude is fixed in space on the electronic document.

6 more elements

Dependencies are inferred from the claim text.