Method and apparatus for sharing information using a handheld device

A data processing system for identifying one of a plurality of reference documents from information received from a handheld device in communication with the data processing system, the data processing system coupled to the data network and each reference document having reference data, the data processing system comprising:

• at least one memory device in which a plurality of instructions are stored;
• and
• a processor coupled to the at least one memory device and capable of executing instructions in the memory device to:
• (i) access the reference data in the at least one memory device, and (ii) receive the information from the handheld device, wherein the information comprises data scanned from a document by the handheld device, wherein execution of the instructions causing a plurality of steps to be performed including:
• storing a plurality of reference documents within a repository of reference documents on a storage device, including storing reference data for each reference document of the plurality of reference documents, wherein the reference data comprises data representing human-readable content from an associated reference document of the plurality of reference documents, wherein the human-readable content includes actual content from the associated reference document of the plurality of reference documents;
• receiving digital data at a data processing system from a handheld device, wherein the digital data corresponds to one or more of the reference documents of the plurality of reference documents, and wherein the digital data comprises at least human-readable content captured by scanning a document by the handheld device, wherein the human-readable content is actual content of the document;
• extracting at least a portion of the received digital data including human-readable content that is actual content from the document scanned by the handheld device in the form of text data, as scanning data;
• retrieving from the storage device reference data for at least one reference document of the plurality of reference documents;
• comparing the scanning data with the retrieved reference data, wherein the comparison of the scanning data with the retrieved reference data includes a comparison of the human-readable content that is actual content of the document in the scanning data with the human-readable content that is actual content of the at least one reference document in the retrieved reference data;
• and
• if comparing the scanning data with the retrieved reference data indicates at least the portion of the scanning data that is the actual text content of the document matches at least a portion of the retrieved reference data that is the actual text content of the at least one reference document in the retrieved reference data, identifying the at least one reference document of the plurality of reference documents associated with the matched at least a portion of the retrieved reference data as being the document scanned by the handheld device.

A wireless handheld device operable to establish a wireless data communications path with a data processing system coupled to a wireless data network, comprising:

• (i) an information capturing apparatus operable to receive as input an information;
• (ii) a transceiver operating to receive and transmit a wireless data connection with the data processing system coupled to the wireless data network, the transceiver being operable to:
• establish a wireless communications path between the handheld device and the data processing system coupled to the wireless data network;
• and
• send a captured digital data from the handheld device to the data processing system via the wireless communications path;
• (iii) a memory in which a plurality of instructions are stored;
• and
• (iv) a processor coupled to the memory and capable of executing the instructions in the memory, wherein execution of the instructions causes a plurality of steps to be performed including:
• capturing the input information as the captured digital data utilizing the handheld device, wherein the digital data represents at least one human-readable content captured by the information capturing apparatus;
• storing the captured digital data in the memory as scanning data, wherein the human-readable content includes content from the body of the associated reference document of the plurality of reference documents and identifying indicia comprising at least one information of the associated reference document of the plurality of reference documents;
• and
• receiving, at the transceiver from the data processing system via the wireless communications path, data representing a comparing operation and an identifying operation performed at a remote location;
• the comparing operation comprising:
• comparing the scanning data with a digital data representative of human-readable reference data for at least one reference document of a plurality of reference documents;
• and
• the identifying operation comprising:
• if comparing the scanning data with the digital data representative of human-readable reference data indicates at least a portion of the scanning data that is actual text content of the document matches at least a portion of the digital data that is actual text content of the at least one reference document, identifying the one or more reference documents of the plurality of reference documents as being the document containing the human-readable content captured by the information capturing apparatus.

A non-transitory computer readable media containing processor readable program code that when executed by a processor in a data processing system, causes the data processing system to perform a method for identifying one or more of a plurality of reference documents, each reference document having reference data stored in a memory and wherein the reference data comprises data from the associated reference document, based on digital image data received by the data processing system from a handheld device in wireless communication with the data processing system over a data network, the method comprising:

• receiving digital image data at a data processing system from a handheld device, wherein the digital image data corresponds to an image of one of the reference documents of the plurality of reference documents, and wherein the digital image data comprises at least one image of a document captured by the handheld device, wherein the digital image data corresponds to human-readable content within the document and does not comprise information exclusively machine readable;
• extracting at least a portion of the received digital data including human-readable content that is actual content from the document scanned by the handheld device in the form of text data as scanning data;
• retrieving from the memory device the reference data for at least one reference document;
• comparing the scanning data with the retrieved reference data, wherein the comparison of the scanning data with the retrieved reference data includes a comparison of the human-readable content that is actual text content of the at least one reference document in the reference data with the human-readable content of the scanning data that is actual text content of the document;
• if comparing the scanning data with the retrieved reference data indicates at least the portion of the scanning data that is the actual text content of the document matches at least a portion of the retrieved reference data that is the actual text content of the at least one reference document in the retrieved reference data, identifying the one reference document as the document scanned by the handheld device;
• and
• sending data representing at least a portion of the identified document to the handheld device.

A computer program product, comprising:

• a non-transitory computer readable media;
• and
• program code on the computer readable media that when executed by a data processing system, cause the data processing system to perform:
• storing a plurality of reference documents within a repository of reference documents on a storage device, including storing reference data for each reference document of the plurality of reference documents, wherein the reference data comprises data representing human-readable content from an associated reference document of the plurality of reference documents, wherein the human-readable content includes actual content from the associated reference document of the plurality of reference documents;
• receiving digital data at a data processing system from a handheld device, wherein the digital data corresponds to one or more of the reference documents of the plurality of reference documents, and wherein the digital data comprises at least human-readable content captured by scanning a document by the handheld device, wherein the human-readable content is actual content of the document;
• extracting at least a portion of the received digital data including human-readable content that is actual content from the document scanned by the handheld device in the form of the text data as scanning data;
• retrieving from the storage device reference data for at least one reference document of the plurality of reference documents;
• comparing the scanning data with the retrieved reference data, wherein the comparison of the scanning data with the retrieved reference data includes a comparison of the human-readable content that is actual content of the document in the scanning data with the human-readable content that is actual content of the at least one reference document in the retrieved reference data;
• and
• if comparing the scanning data with the retrieved reference data indicates at least the portion of the scanning data that is the actual text content of the document matches at least a portion of the retrieved reference data that is the actual text content of the at least one reference document in the retrieved reference data, identifying the at least one reference document of the plurality of reference documents associated with the matched at least a portion of the retrieved reference data as being the document scanned by the handheld device.

A computer program product operable to execute on the processor of a wireless handheld device, the device being operable to establish a wireless data communications path with a data processing system coupled to a wireless data network, the wireless handheld device comprising:

• (i) an information capturing apparatus operable to receive as input an information;
• (ii) a transceiver operating to receive and transmit a wireless data connection with the data processing system coupled to the wireless data network, the transceiver being operable to:
• establish a wireless communications path between the handheld device and the data processing system coupled to the wireless data network;
• and
• send a captured digital data from the handheld device to the data processing system via the wireless communications path;
• (iii) a non-transitory computer readable media in which a plurality of instructions are stored;
• and
• (iv) the processor being coupled to the memory;
• the computer program product comprising program code on the computer readable memory medium that when executed by the processor, cause the processor to perform:
• capturing the input information as the captured digital data utilizing the handheld device, wherein the digital data represents at least one human-readable content captured by the information capturing apparatus;
• storing the captured digital data in the memory as scanning data, wherein the human-readable content includes content from the body of the associated reference document of the plurality of reference documents and identifying indicia comprising at least one information of the associated reference document of the plurality of reference documents;
• and
• receiving, at the handheld device from the data processing system via the wireless communications path, data representing a comparing operation and an identifying operation performed at a remote location;
• the comparing operation comprising:
• comparing the scanning data with a digital data representative of human-readable reference data, wherein the comparison of the scanning data with the retrieved reference data includes a comparison of the human-readable content in the reference data with the human-readable content of the scanning data for at least one reference document of a plurality of reference documents;
• and
• the identifying operation comprising:
• identifying, when the comparing the scanning data with the digital data representative of human-readable reference data indicates at least a portion of the scanning data matches at least a portion of the digital data representative of human-readable reference data, the one or more reference documents of the plurality of reference documents associated with the matched at least a portion of the retrieved reference data as the document containing the human-readable content captured by the handheld device.