EP0273435A2
Expired / Lapsed
EP
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Office automation system with integrated image management
Assignee: Wang Laboratories Inc
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Filing: 1987-12-29
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Granted: —
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Expires: 2007-12-29
Abstract
Abstract An office automation system that provides for the incorporation of documents of all types by integrating images into the system. A minicomputer-based system includes applications such as word processing, data base, and mail, each of which can access image documents. Bulk storage of document images is provided using a variety of storage media such as microfilm, microfiche, and optical disks. An image access subsystem provides to each of the office automation applications uniform access to images stored on all of the media. The image access subsystem can use a hardware controller to handle some of the complexity of retrieval of images from the image storage devices. A relational data base system is used to organize the stored images so as to provide flexible access to the images and to isolate any effects of reconfiguration of the image storage system.
Inventors
- 👤 Richard M. Barrett
- 👤 Murray Edelberg
- 👤 Joseph A. Nicholls
- 👤 Clinton J. O'brien
- 👤 Bruce R. Silver
Bibliographic Details
Application Number
—
Jurisdiction
EP
Data Source
google_patents
Last Synchronized
2026-10-27 04:08
CPC Classifications
G; G06; G06Q; G06Q10/00; G06Q10/10; G06F; G06F16/00; G06F16/40; Y; Y10; Y10S; Y10S707/00; Y10S707/99941; Y10S707/99944; Y10S707/99945
Claims Analysis
Total Claims: 10
Claim 1
Independent Claim
119 words
In an image management system, means for retrieving image documents from a plurality of types of bulk image storage media comprising: (A) a relational data base system (310), (B) a plurality of document locator data bases (382), each for use by the relational data base system for determining a media address for an image document from a logical document identifier, (C) an image system data base (380) for use by the relational data base system for determining a physical device address from a media address, wherein the media address refers to one of a plurality different storage media, and wherein the image system data base includes a table (612, 614, 616) for each type of bulk image storage medium.
Claim 2
Dependent Claim
119 words
In an image management system, means for retrieving image documents from a plurality of types of bulk image storage media comprising: (A) a relational data base system (310), (B) a plurality of document locator data bases (382), each for use by the relational data base system for determining a media address for an image document from a logical document identifier, (C) an image system data base (380) for use by the relational data base system for determining a physical device address from a media address, wherein the media address refers to one of a plurality different storage media, and wherein the image system data base includes a table (612, 614, 616) for each type of bulk image storage medium.
Claim 3
Dependent Claim
37 words
Document retrieval means as in claim 1 wherein an image document can include a plurality of extents, and wherein the document data base includes (a) a document locator table (512) and (b) an extent locator table (514).
Claim 4
Dependent Claim
29 words
Document retrieval means as in claim 2 wherein associated with at least some of the media addresses determined by the document data base is an image scan threshold value.
Claim 5
Dependent Claim
177 words
An office automation system comprising: (A) a plurality of bulk image storage devices (180, 182, 184, 186), at least two of which use different types of storage media, (B) means (380, 382, 384) for defining image documents and associating with each image document a logical document identifier, where an image document is a logical group of stored images, said defining means being capable of including images stored on different types of media in a single image document, (C) an image access subsystem (322, 324, 356, 358) for providing access to stored images in a manner independent of the medium on which the images are stored, (D) a word processing subsystem (314) arranged to display an image accessed via the image access subsystem as a part of a word processing document, (E) a data base subsystem (310) providing a field data type of the type "image document" by which an image document can be associated with a data base record, (F) a mail subsystem (316) for delivering message packages including image documents retrieved via the image access subsystem.
Claim 6
Dependent Claim
177 words
An office automation system comprising: (A) a plurality of bulk image storage devices (180, 182, 184, 186), at least two of which use different types of storage media, (B) means (380, 382, 384) for defining image documents and associating with each image document a logical document identifier, where an image document is a logical group of stored images, said defining means being capable of including images stored on different types of media in a single image document, (C) an image access subsystem (322, 324, 356, 358) for providing access to stored images in a manner independent of the medium on which the images are stored, (D) a word processing subsystem (314) arranged to display an image accessed via the image access subsystem as a part of a word processing document, (E) a data base subsystem (310) providing a field data type of the type "image document" by which an image document can be associated with a data base record, (F) a mail subsystem (316) for delivering message packages including image documents retrieved via the image access subsystem.
Claim 7
Dependent Claim
56 words
A system as in claim 4 wherein the document defining and associating means includes data tables for use by a relational data base system, said tables including a field of the type "image document" that stores a character string that is a non structured data item and is the logical document identifier for an image document.
Claim 8
Dependent Claim
34 words
A system as in claim 4 further comprising a character recognition subsystem (194) arranged to receive image documents retrieved by the image access subsystem and to convert to text form portions of received images.
Claim 9
Dependent Claim
33 words
The system of claim 6 wherein the character recognition subsystem can be used by user application programs (312) to perform image-to-text conversion of a portion of an image document specified by the application.
Claim 10
Dependent Claim
51 words
The system of claim 4 further comprising a telephone facsimile subsystem (196) for transmitting to a remotely located facsimile system an image retrieved by the image access subsystem and for receiving a document image from a remotely located facsimile system and using the image access subsystem to store the received image.
References Cited (Backward Citations)
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