Title of Invention

A SYSTEM AND METHOD FOR THE GENERATION AND TRACKING OF DOCUMENTS

Abstract

ABSTRACT The present invention provides a system and a method for the generation and tracking of documents printed with RFIDs which indicate the content of the document and producing a real-time alert in case of security breach. This invention introduces a direct relevance between the security levels of the document and uses a common security field on the document RFID that can help the RFID detector for taking real-time actions without the help of an external database when a document with RFID is detected by the same. The invention also proposes to place the RFID tag much more intelligently using the knowledge regarding the locations where the final data is going to be present. A real-time alert facility for informing a security breach is also incorporated in the invention. Fig. 3 14

Full Text

FIELD OF THE INVENTION This invention relates, in general, to the measures taken for the security of documents in hard copy form. Further, this invention relates to security provisions and tracking of any document having Radio frequency Identification (RFID) tags attached to it. More particularly, this invention relates to a system and method for the generation and tracking of documents printed with radio frequency identifications (RFIDs) which indicate the content of the document and producing a reai-time alert in case of security breach. DESCRIPTION OF THE RELATED ART RFID tags are used widely for the purpose of tracking and detection of material to which they are attached. It has been found that they are effective tools for tracking the movement of documents. Published US Patent application no. 2004/0041707 speaks about using the above technology for tracking document with attached RFIDs for the purpose of security. The said application describes how a document can be tracked by sensing the tags attached to it and about processing of this information at a database server. The system according to the above mentioned application has a device that can attach the RFID to a paper document, a database of documents' hash values and the RFID associated with each document and an environment that has RFID detectors, which interface with the said database. According to the teachings of the prior art, the document is supplied with an RFID when it is generated. The same, along with a hash value of the document (eg: md5 sum) is stored in a centralized server. When the document is taken from one place to another, the RFID detectors will sense the information encoded in the RFID and pass the same to the database server. The server uses this information for the purpose of tracking the document. The system and its operation can be understood from Figures 1 and 2, As is apparent from the drawings, there Is a plurality of sensors disposed about an area of a structure suitable for placement of one or more documents and each sensor is capable of producing a sensor output signal in response to sensing a response signal produced by a document. A detection module is coupled to it for receiving sensor output signals from the said sensors to produce a detection signal indicative of movement of a document disposed on the said structure. The first set of sensors produce output signals corresponding to the first position of the document and the second set of sensors produce output signals corresponding to the second position of the document and so on. Even though the system described herein above is very effective in tracking the documents, it has some weaknesses and drawbacks. The major problem Is that the RFID generated does not have any relation to the content of the document and hence it becomes difficult for someone to classify a document and associate security features with a document that will be common to a group or class of a same kind. Another drawback is that the system places the RFID in a constant location. If one knows where it is going to be placed then he can just avoid any data being phnted on that part. Later, this user can simply remove that blank part of the document which has RFID and maintain the complete document with him. It Is also a weakness of the system that it does not give any real-time alerts. Based upon the foregoing deficiencies in the related art, there has been found a need to generate a meaningful RFID for each document that allows security tracking of the document and alerting a breach in a much simpler method from the existing system. SUMMARY OF THE INVENTION It is therefore the primary object of the invention to provide a system and method for the generation and tracking of documents printed with radio frequency identifications (RFIDs) which indicate the content of the document and producing a real-time alert in case of security breach. It is another object of the invention to introduce a system that provides direct relevance between the security levels of the document and employs a common security field on the document RFID that is dynamically generated and in order to enable the RFID detector for taking quick real-time actions without the help of an external database when a document with a common security RFID is detected by the same. It is also an object of the invention to provide a common group ID which will be helpful in marking a document to be legal at certain premises of a buiWing and not at some other parts, It is another object of the present invention to attach the RFID tag more intelligently on the document by randomly dictating the location where it has to be placed depending on the instructions from a printer or copying device (eg: MFP) that has a sense of final location of the data that will be printed and thereby making it difficult for the user to tamper w/ith the tag without damaging the document. it is a further object of the invention to provide a system In which the constellation of sensors not only generate passive tracking information but also produce real-time alerts whenever a security breach is found. The above objects and advantages of the present invention are accomplished through the pre-processing of the document by appropriate means which might include an OCR (optical character re-organization) or a watermark detector to decide on the security level of the document while such an ID is generated and by providing the sensors with minimal Intelligence for sensing the security/valid location field that is associated with each document detected. Accordingly the present invention provides a system for the generation and tracking of documents printed with Radio Frequency Identifications (RFID) which indicate the content of the document and producing a real-time alert in case of security breach, the system comprising: (a) host device where the applications forming the content of the document Is stored; (b) a printer device that receives the information from the said host and directs an RFID attachment device regarding the location and the content of the said RFID; (c) an RFID attachment device coupled to the said printer for attaching the said RFID to the said document; and (d) a plurality of RFID detectors which recognize the valid location tag indicating the location of the document and having the means for giving real-time alerts when a security breach is detected. The present invention further provides a method for the generation and tracking of documents pnnted with radio frequency identification (RFID's) which indicate the content of the document and producing a real-time alert in case of security breach, the method comprising the steps of: (a) checking the file type to determine whether It contains text alone, image alone or both; (b) deciding an RFID number based on the above analysis and passing It to the driver; (c) determining the RFID location on the document and attaching It there; (d) printing the document with the said RFID; (e) tracking the movement of the document using RFID detectors; and (0 producing a real-time alert when a security breach is detected. Other advantages and features of the invention will become more readily apparent from the following description of an embodiment of the invention given as a non-restrictive example only and represented in the accompanying drawings in which, Figure 1 illustrates a document reproduction system, which can handle the attachment of RFID to generate a document according to the prior art. Figure 2 represents RFID detectors spread all around in a building and capable of detecting documents according to the prior art. Figure 3 is a diagrammatic representation of the proposed system according to the invention. Figure 4 is a diagrammatic representation of another possible configuration of the above said system. Figure 5 is a Flow chart, which represents the working of the system according to one embodiment of the invention. DETAiLED DESCRIPTiON OF THE INVENTION The preferred embodiments of the present invention will now be explained with reference to the accompanying drawings. It should be understood however that the disclosed embodiments are merely exemplary of the invention, which may be embodied in various forms. The following description and drawings are not to be construed as limiting the invention and numerous specific details are described to provide a thorough understanding of the present invention, as the basis for the claims and as a basis for teaching one skilled in the art on how to make and/or use the invention. However in certain instances, well-known or conventional details are not described in order not to unnecessarily obscure the present invention in detail. In order to have a better understanding of the invention the system used in the prior art is herein described with reference to Figures 1 and 2. Figure 1 shows the details of the sensor, decoder and transmitter combination communicating with a database server and the figure 2 gives the geographical distribution of many such units. The prior art says that the information can be stored in a tag. It does not give a method to generate such information, rather concentrates on Ids lil One disadvantage of above invention is that md5 sum will not have direct relevance to security of a document. If a detector needs to find if the current location of the document is valid, then it always needs to contact the database server. But the sensors of new invention have one time programmable memory which will be used to store group id. This helps them in disconnected action that they can function when a centralized data server is not accessible by a sensor). The RFID generated at the time of copying the document has a part which is specific to the location in which the document Is permitted to be present. Each sensor will have this particular part stored in them. If that particular part of RFID of a document does not match with the valid ID present in the sensor, the sensor generates an alamn without contacting the centralized data sen/er. In normal cases, the sensor just transmits the RFID to the sen/er which uses the ID as well as the location of the originating sensor to detect any security breach and takes corresponding action. Now referring to Figure 3, the operation of the system according to the present invention is described. As shown in the figure, the system comprises a host device where the application whose hard copy has to be generated, a printer capable of receiving the RFID information from the host and directing an RFID attachment device about the location and content of the RFID, an RFID attachment device coupled with the printer and a system of RFID detectors (not shown) that can be used to recognize the security/ valid location tag or a generalized fonri of the above and having the capabilities of raising a security alarm are all shown. The application residing in the host i.e. the content of the document can be a text search application, an OCR application or the combination of the above and a dynamically updateable collection of security tags along with certain built-in security tags. The host can be a printer, multifunctional device or a host computer. (Another alternative of the proposed system is shown in Figure 4 in which the RFID attacher is positioned after the printer engine). The first block is the driver of the machine from where the job originates. The RFID generation takes place at the driver level. The document is first tested to find the type of the document. If it is a text document, the driver searches for the security tags present in the document. If the document is not text based, it then tries water mark detection or OCR to find the security level of the document and the user is allowed to increase the security level manually. If administrator has already set the valid location ID for that security level, the same is assigned to that part of the document. The other part of the RFID is allocated a number which will be more or less unique to the document. The RFID and certain details of the document are then communicated to the centralized server. Based on the administrator setting, the document or a part of it can also be sent to the centralized server. The driver also decides the location of RFID tag in the current document. It is decided such a way that the tag is never printed on blank space of document. For multi-page documents, the driver changes the location of this ID randomly to maximize the possibility of attaching the RFID to the crucial part of the document. If longer tags are used, the tag is always attached so that it Is perpendicular to the lines of text in the document to which it is attached. The second block is the RFID attaching device or the print engine. The RFID attaching device will receive the content and the location of the ID from the driver via the print engine. If the attaching device precedes the print engine, the paper is not released till the above information is obtained from the print engine. A trusted user can be allowed to choose the security level of the document with appropriate means such as OCR or a watermark detector while generating the ID after he authenticates his identification with the system. It is possible to record this event in a secure server, if necessary. Also, the user will be allowed to choose the entries for the fields related to different locations in which the document will be valid. For example, a research document is valid in the R & D department and conference halls but not in the shipment department. These field entries are secondary to the auto generated security field. Since the system according to the present invention includes a printer that has the sense of final location of the data that will be printed, the same can be used to randomly dictate a location for the RFID attaching device so that the removal of the same will result in certain amount of data loss. Figure 5 illustrates the steps involved in attaching the RFID to the document. The application that requires printing a document undergoes a file type check first in order to determine whether it contains text alone, image alone or a combination of text and image. If it contains only text, then based on the security level and the document tags, the RFID number is decided. If the document contains image only, then RFID number is decided based on the document tags using OCR or watermarit detection and the security level. When the document contains both text and image RFID number it is decided considering both the circumstances. Once the RFID number is determined, it is passed to the driver. After that, the RFID location will be decided and printed. The print out of the document is made available hence. The invention works based on the idea of security tags printed on the RFID tags attached to the document. The printing system generates an RFID with all usual tracking fields such as user ID, originating IP etc., along with security tags. A very simple detector with minimal memory can remember such security IDs and generate alarms when any security breach is detected. The sensors are provided with minimal Intelligence for sensing the valid location field that is associated with each document detected. This will allow the sensor to make a detection of any security breach without contacting any server and the ID will serve as a measure of severity of breach. The device can then alert others using a remotely activated bell or by activating some other device that can send real-time alerts such as a device capable of sending short messages over wireless etc. In an alternate embodiment of the invention, the sensor is provided with a simple logging device attached to it for collecting breach information. The sensor can have better network capabilities for raising a breach alert or it can user RF signal itself to activate a remote alarm. In yet another embodiment of the invention, the RFID placement device is made into a separate unit out from printer. But this arrangement could lead to some security concerns. In a further embodiment of the invention, the content analyses are done at the host side or at a peripheral side. It Is also within the scope of the invention to provide a security breach log server. It will also be obvious to those skilled In the art that other control methods and apparatuses can be derived from the combinations of the various methods and apparatuses of the present invention as taught by the description and the accompanying drawings and these shall also be considered within the scope of the present invention. Further, description of such combinations and variations is therefore omitted below. It should also be noted that the host for storing the applications include but not limited to a computer, printer or a multi function device. Although the present invention has been fully described in connection with the preferred embodiments thereof with reference to the accompanying drawings, it is to be noted that vanous changes and modifications are possible and are apparent to those skilled in the art. Such changes and modifications are to be understood as included within the scope of the present invention as defined by the appended claims unless they depart therefrom. 10 WE CLAIM 1. A system for the generation and tracking of the documents printed with Radio Frequency Identifications (RFID) which indicate the content of the document and producing a real-time alert in case of security breach, the system comprising: (a) host device where the applications fomiing the content of the document is stored; (b) a printer device that receives the information from the said host and directs an RFID attachment device regarding the location and the content of the said RFID; (c) an RFID attachment device coupled to the said printer for attaching the said RFID to the said document; and (d) a plurality of RFID detectors which recognize the valid location tag indicating the location of the document and having the means for giving real-time alerts when a security breach is detected. 2. The system as claimed in claim 1 wherein the RFID associated with the security level of the content in each document being printed is generated dynamically. 3. The system as claimed in any of the preceding claims wherein the locations for placement of secure RFID tag is determined intelligently and randomly. 4. The system as claimed in claim 1 wherein the RFID detectors comprise means for tracking certain known field to detect any security breach. 5. The system as claimed in claim 1 wherein group level security attributes are assigned to a document that is location dependant. 11 6. The system as claimed in claim 1 wherein the said detectors are provided with memory means for remembering the security IDs to enable the generation of alarms when any security breach occurs. 7. The system according to claim 1 wherein the real-time alerting means include a remotely activated bell or a device capable of sending short messages over wireless. 8. The system as claimed In claim 1 wherein the printer means include multi¬function device. 9. The system according to claim 1 wherein the applications forming the content of the document include text search application, OCR application, dynamically updatable collection of security tags and built-in security tags. 10. The system according to any of the preceding claims wherein the said sensors have a simple logging device attached to it for collecting breach information. 11.The system as claimed in claim 1 wherein the said RFID attachment device is a separate unit. 12. The system according to any of the preceding claims wherein the said sensors use RF signal to activate a remote alarm. 13. A method for the generation and tracking of the documents printed with radio frequency identification (RFlD's) which indicate the content of the document and producing a real-time alert in case of security breach, the method comprising the steps of: (a) checking the file type to determine whether it contains text alone, image alone or both; 12 (b) deciding an RFID number based on the above analysis and passing it to the driver; (c) determining the RFID location on the document and attaching it there; (d) printing the document with the said RFID; (e) tracking the movement of the document using RFID detectors; and (f) producing a real-time alert when a security breach is detected. 14. A system for the generation and tracking of document printed with Radio frequency identities which Indicate the content of the document and producing a real-time alert in case of security breach substantially as herein described and illustrated with reference to the accompanying drawings. 15. A method for the generation and tracking of documents printed with radio frequency identification (RFID's) which indicate the content of the document and producing a real-time alert in case of security breach substantially as herein described and illustrated with reference to the accompanying drawings. 13

Documents:

1020-che-2004 abstract-duplicate.pdf

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1020-che-2004 claims.pdf

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1020-che-2004 correspondence-others.pdf

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1020-che-2004 description (complete)-duplicate.pdf

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1020-che-2004 drawings-duplicate.pdf

1020-che-2004 drawings.pdf

1020-che-2004 form-1.pdf

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1020-che-2004 form-26.pdf