“Reading Device Reading Original And Estimating Corner Shape Thereof” in Patent Application Approval Process (USPTO 20210281699): Brother Kogyo Kabushiki Kaisha

2021 SEP 29 (NewsRx) -- By a News Reporter-Staff News Editor at Insurance Daily News -- A patent application by the inventor MOTOYAMA, Toshiki (Konan-shi, Japan), filed on March 3, 2021, was made available online on September 9, 2021, according to news reporting originating from Washington, D.C., by NewsRx correspondents.

This patent application is assigned to Brother Kogyo Kabushiki Kaisha (Mizuho-ku, Japan).

The following quote was obtained by the news editors from the background information supplied by the inventors: “Identity verification or similar processes have conventionally been conducted at various service windows and through mail correspondence or the Internet. Accordingly, there is increased demand to provide a technology for reading and copying surfaces of thick ID cards, such as a driver’s license or a health insurance card.

“To meet this demand, some conventional devices possessing a function to read originals have been provided with a special mode for reading both front and back surfaces of a card and outputting images of both the front surface and back surface together in a single file or to a single sheet of paper.”

In addition to the background information obtained for this patent application, NewsRx journalists also obtained the inventor’s summary information for this patent application: “A device that uses a flatbed system to read originals is provided with a platen glass on which an original is placed, and a reading unit movably disposed beneath the platen glass. When an original is set in an original placement area of the platen glass, the reading unit is moved under the glass to read the original. Many of these conventional flatbed reading devices do not have the capacity to read images in the leading edge portion of the original placement area (the edge of the original placement area on the side from which the reading unit begins moving.) Thus, if a card is placed on the platen glass of a flatbed reading device having these specifications so that a corner of the card is aligned with a corner of the original placement area, the image data read by this device will be missing a portion of the card since the device cannot read images in this area. Consequently, the user must arrange the card such that the corner of the card is separated from the corner of the original placement area. However, reading devices developed in recent years are being designed with the capacity to read the entire original placement area. Accordingly, these devices can read the entire surface of a card arranged on the platen glass, even when a corner of the card is aligned with a corner of the original placement area.

“Since most ID cards are formed such that their four corners are rounded, such cards differ from ordinary originals having corners formed substantially at right angles. Consequently, when the card is placed on the platen glass such that a corner is aligned with a corner of the original placement area, the card original does not fill the entire corner of the original placement area. In a conventional flatbed-type device, an original cover provided for covering the back surface of the original placed on the platen glass includes a white original holding sheet on its inner surface. However, in consideration for potential play (looseness) in the original cover, this original holding sheet has been formed slightly smaller than the original placement area in order to reliably restrain the original. Therefore, when a corner of the original placement area is not entire filled by the original and the original holding sheet for providing a white background does not cover this area, the corner area will be read as black. In other words, an image represented by image data acquired by reading the card placed on the platen glass may include not only a part of the image of the card but also a part (black area in corners C1 to C4 illustrated in FIG. 8) not included in the image of the card in any of four corners.

“Further, even when a device that uses an automatic document feeder system to read originals is used for reading a card, an image represented by image data acquired by the device may also include a part not included in the image of the card in any of the four corners. It should be noted that the reason why the image represented by the acquired image data includes the part not included in the image of the card is not necessarily due to the small original holding sheet.

“When a black area appears in the reading results, the image data for this black area may be deleted from the scanning results if it is known that the black area is simply an area in which the original (and the white holding sheet) was not present. However, determining whether the black area was formed due to the original not being present is not an easy process. Further, since there are various shapes of rounded corners depending on the type of card, the shape of the corners cannot be determined in advance.

“In view of the foregoing, it is an object of the present disclosure to provide a reading device capable of estimating the corner shape of an original.

“In order to attain the above and other objects, the present disclosure provides a reading device including a reader; and a controller. The reader is configured to read both of a sheet of paper and a card as an original. The controller is, when the card having four original corners is set as the original, configured to perform for implementing a card reading function: (a) reading; and (b) acquiring. The (a) reading reads the original with the reader to acquire original image data corresponding to an original image area having four corner regions. The (b) acquiring acquires edge information of a first original corner from the original image data to estimate a round shape of the first original corner using the edge information. The first original corner is one of the four original corners in the original.”

The claims supplied by the inventors are:

“1. A reading device comprising: a reader configured to read both of a sheet of paper and a card as an original; a controller, when the card having four original corners is set as the original, configured to perform for implementing a card reading function: (a) reading the original with the reader to acquire original image data corresponding to an original image area having four corner regions; and (b) acquiring edge information of a first original corner from the original image data to estimate a round shape of the first original corner using the edge information, the first original corner being one of the four original corners in the original.

“2. The reading device according to claim 1, wherein the controller is configured to further perform: © selecting whether to enable or disable the card reading function, and wherein the (a) reading and the (b) acquiring are performed in response to selecting to enable the card reading function in ©.

“3. The reading device according to claim 2, wherein the controller is configured to further perform: (d) determining whether the original is the card based on a size of the original, wherein the © selecting selects to enable the card reading function in response to determining that the original is the card in (d).

“4. The reading device according to claim 3, wherein the (d) determining determines that the original is the card when the size of the original falls within a predetermined range of a card size.

“5. The reading device according to claim 2, wherein the controller is configured to further perform: (e) receiving an instruction to enable the card reading function, and wherein the © selecting selects to enable the card reading function in response to receiving the selection of the card reading function in (e).

“6. The reading device according to claim 1, further comprising: a platen having an original placement surface in which a rectangular region is defined as an original placement area, the four original corners in the original further including a second original corner diagonally opposite from the first original corner, the original being arranged in the original placement area with the second original corner aligned with one area corner of the original placement area, the reader being disposed on an opposite side to the original placement surface with respect to the platen and being configured to read the original disposed on the original placement surface while moving in a moving direction parallel to the original placement surface; and an original retainer provided on a same side as the original placement surface with respect to the platen, the original retainer being configured to press the original against the original placement surface, wherein the (a) reading reads the original to acquire the original image data corresponding to the original placement area while the original retainer is pressing the original.

“7. The reading device according to claim 1, wherein the four original corners in the original further include a second original corner diagonally opposite from the first original corner, the four corner regions of the original image area include a first corner region containing the first original corner and a second corner region containing the second original corner, and the original image data includes corner image data corresponding to the first corner region, and wherein the (b) acquiring comprises: (b1) dividing the first corner region into an inside area and an outside area with a border, the inside area being positioned on a same side as the second corner region with respect to the border between the inside area and the outside area, the outside area being positioned on an opposite side to the second corner region with respect to the border; (b2) acquiring the edge information indicating a shape of the border; and (b3) estimating the rounded shape of the first original corner using the acquired edge information.

“8. The reading device according to claim 1, wherein the (b) acquiring comprises: (b4) calculating a corner radius of the rounded shape of the first original corner using the edge information; and (b5) estimating the rounded shape of the first original corner based on the corner radius.

“9. The reading device according to claim 1, wherein the controller is configured to further perform: (f) determining an original area in which the original is present based on the rounded shape of the first original corner.

“10. The reading device according to claim 9, wherein the four original corners in the original further includes a second original corner, a third original corner and a fourth original corner, the second original corner being diagonally opposite from the first original corner, the fourth original corner being diagonally opposite from the third original corner, wherein the (f) determining comprises: (f1) applying the rounded shape of the first original corner to estimate a rounded shape of each of the second original corner, the third original corer, and the fourth original corner; and (f2) determining the original area based on the rounded shape of each of the first original corner, the second original corner, the third original corner, and the fourth original corner.

“11. The reading device according to claim 10, wherein each of the four corner regions of the original image area contains an individual original corner, wherein the (f1) applying divides each of the four corner regions into an inside area and an outside area with a border having the rounded shape of the first original corner, the inside area in one corner region containing one original corner being positioned on a same side as another original corner with respect to the border, the another original corner being positioned diagonally opposite from the one original corner, the outside area in the one corner region being positioned on an opposite side to the another original corner with respect to the border, and wherein the (f2) determining determines the original area by including the inside area determined for each of the four corner regions and excluding the outside area determined for each of the four corner regions.

“12. The reading device according to claim 11, wherein the four corner regions include a first corner region containing the first original corner, a second corner region containing the second original corner, a third corner region containing the third original corner, and a fourth corner region containing the fourth original corner, wherein the (f1) applying divides each of the first corner region, the second corner region, the third corner region, and the fourth corner region into the inside area and the outside area with the border having the rounded shape of the first original corner, the inside area of the first corner region being positioned on a same side as the second corner region with respect to the border, the outside area of the first corner region being positioned on an opposite side to the second corner region with respect to the border, the inside area of the second corner region being positioned on a same side as the first corner region with respect to the border, the outside area of the second corner region being positioned on an opposite side to the first corner region with respect to the border, the inside area of the third corner region being positioned on a same side as the fourth corner region with respect to the border, the outside area of the third corner region being positioned on an opposite side to the fourth corner region with respect to the border, the inside area of the fourth corner region being positioned on a same side as the third corner region with respect to the border, the outside area of the fourth corner region being positioned on an opposite side to the third corner region with respect to the border, and wherein the (f2) determining determines the original area by including the inside area determined for each of the first corner region, the second corner region, the third corner region, and the fourth corner region and excluding the outside area determined for each of the first corner region, the second corner region, the third corner region, and the fourth corner region.

“13. The reading device according to claim 11, wherein the controller is configured to further perform: (g) replacing image data corresponding to the outside area determined for each of the four corner regions with white data.

“14. The reading device according to claim 9, wherein the four corner regions of the original image area include a first corner region containing the first original corner, a second corner region containing the second original corner, a third corner region containing the third original corner, and a fourth corner region containing the fourth original corner, and wherein the (f) determining determines the original area including the first corner region, the second corner region, the third corner region, and the fourth corner region when the (b) acquiring estimates that the rounded shape of the first original corner follows an elliptical shape.

“15. The reading device according to claim 9, wherein when the (a) reading reads a first surface of the original and then reads a second surface of the original, both the (b) acquiring and the (f) determining are performed in response to reading the first surface, and the (b) acquiring is skipped and the (0 determining is performed in response to reading the second surface.”

URL and more information on this patent application, see: MOTOYAMA, Toshiki. Reading Device Reading Original And Estimating Corner Shape Thereof. Filed March 3, 2021 and posted September 9, 2021. Patent URL: https://appft.uspto.gov/netacgi/nph-Parser?Sect1=PTO1&Sect2=HITOFF&d=PG01&p=1&u=%2Fnetahtml%2FPTO%2Fsrchnum.html&r=1&f=G&l=50&s1=%2220210281699%22.PGNR.&OS=DN/20210281699&RS=DN/20210281699

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