Paper and electronic recognizable forms
AssigneeInternational Business Machines Corporation
InventorsAmir Geva, Ehud Karnin, Eugeniusz Walach
Life of this patent
Estimating the term…
Abstract
A method for processing forms in a computer system includes receiving from a human operator a design of a unified from template including data fields and respective attributes. Paper forms and electronic forms (e-forms) are automatically produced based on the unified form template. Filled-in paper forms and filled-in e-forms are accepted from the clients of the computer system, the filled-in forms including data items filled into the respective data fields by the clients. The data items are extracted from the filled-in paper forms and the filled-in e-forms responsively to the unified form template.
Claims17
A method for processing forms in a computer system, comprising:
- receiving from a human operator a unified form template specifying a joint design of a paper form and an electronic form (e-form), wherein the unified template comprises data fields and respective attributes, of which a common attribute is specified jointly for a given data field in both the paper form and the e-form;
- automatically producing, based on the unified form template, paper forms to be filled in by hand by first clients of the computer system and e-forms to be filled in electronically by second clients of the computer system;
- accepting filled-in paper forms, in which first data items have been filled in by hand into the given data field by the first clients, and filled-in e-forms, in which second data items have been filled in electronically into the given data field by the second clients;
- extracting the first and second data items respectively from the filled-in paper forms and the filled-in e-forms;
- and
- validating, using the common attribute, both the first data items that were extracted from the filled-in paper forms and the second data items that were extracted from the filled-in e-forms.
A computerized system for processing forms, comprising:
- a user interface, which is arranged to interact with a human operator so as to receive a unified form template specifying a joint design of a paper form and an electronic form (e-form), wherein the unified template comprises data fields and respective attributes, of which a common attribute is specified jointly for a given data field in both the paper form and the e-form;
- a form processor, which is arranged to automatically produce, based on the unified form template, paper forms to be filled in by hand by first clients of the computerized system and e-forms to be filled in electronically by second clients of the computerized system;
- and
- at least one input device, which is arranged to accept filled-in paper forms, in which first data items have been filled in by hand into the given data field by the first clients, to accept filled-in e-forms, in which second data items have been filled in electronically into the given data field by the second clients, to extract the first and second data items respectively from the filled-in paper forms and the filled-in e-forms, and to validate, using the common attribute, both the first data items that were extracted from the filled-in paper forms and the second data items that were extracted from the filled-in e-forms.
A computer software product for processing forms, the product comprising a computer-readable medium, in which program instructions are stored, which instructions, when read by a computer in a computerized system, cause the computer to interact with a human operator so as to receive a unified form template specifying a joint design of a paper form and an electronic form (e-form), wherein the unified template comprises data fields and respective attributes, of which a common attribute is specified jointly for a given data field in both the paper form and the e-form, to automatically produce, based on the unified form template, paper forms to be filled in by hand by first clients of the computerized system and e-forms to be filled in electronically by second clients of the computerized system, to accept filled-in paper forms, in which first data items have been filled in by hand into the given data field by the first clients, to accept filled-in e-forms, in which second data items have been filled in electronically into the given data field by the second clients, to extract the first and second data items respectively from the filled-in paper forms and the filled-in e-forms, and to validate, using the common attribute, both the first data items that were extracted from the filled-in paper forms and the second data items that were extracted from the filled-in e-forms.
Dependencies are inferred from the claim text.