JP2003242239A - Public print system, public print service method, storage medium and program - Google Patents

Abstract

<P>PROBLEM TO BE SOLVED: To provide a public print system using digital watermark information. <P>SOLUTION: The public print system or the like is characterized by that it has a data output controller provided with a means for generating output data which can be outputted by a predetermined output device from information including digital contents, an extracting means for extracting pad information padded in the digital contents as a digital watermark, a means for transferring the output data and the extracted pad information to a processor carrying out bill calculation of printing and a means for acquiring bill information from the processor carrying out the bill calculation and displaying it, and a fee settlement processor provided with a means for carrying out a predetermined discount in regard to a fee for printing the information including the digital contents on the basis of the padded information when the information matches a predetermined condition and a means for carrying out an actual fee settlement in consideration of the discount from discount information. <P>COPYRIGHT: (C)2003,JPO

Description

Detailed Description of the Invention

[0001]

BACKGROUND OF THE INVENTION 1. Field of the Invention The present invention relates to a public print system for printing information including digital contents for a fee and a public print service method using the public print system.

[0002]

2. Description of the Related Art A printer is a typical output device for information including digital contents. A printer driver which is a data output control device for controlling the output will be described. It should be noted that the digital content referred to in the following description refers to a moving image, a still image, a sound, a computer program, computer data, and the like, and the information including the digital content includes data such as characters and graphics together with the digital content. Shall be pointed out.

Generally, a computer connecting a printer is equipped with a printer driver for controlling the printer. At the time of printing, the computer supplies image data including characters, graphics, natural images, etc. created by an application installed in the computer to the printer driver as print information. The printer driver generates print data that can be printed by the printer based on the supplied print information, and transfers the print data to the printer.

Specifically, in the printer driver, the print information passed from the application is analyzed, and the image data included in the print information is binarized by a predetermined method.
By expanding (rasterizing) the binarized data in a band memory, a processing method for creating print data, or analyzing print information passed from an application and converting image data included in the print information into multivalued data A printer that develops (rasterizes) in a band memory and creates print data while binarizing the expanded data in raster line units using a predetermined method, or by analyzing print information passed from an application The method of generating a printer control language (so-called PDL) that is understood by is executed.

As the binarization method, one of a method using a pattern dither and an error diffusion method is used. The method using pattern dither is a method capable of binarizing uniformly at high speed, and this method is suitable for binarizing characters, figures, and the like. On the other hand, the error diffusion method is a method capable of expressing subtle gradations and is suitable for binarizing a natural image or the like.

Next, the digital watermark will be described. Compared with conventional analog information, digital information is characterized in that it can be easily copied or tampered with without deterioration by a computer or the like, and can be easily transferred through a communication line. Due to such characteristics, digital information tends to be easily illegally copied and redistributed.
As a method for preventing this, there is a method of embedding a digital watermark. A digital watermark is information that is embedded in digital content and that cannot be perceived by humans.
The digital watermark cannot be perceived even if the digital content in which the digital watermark is embedded is reproduced by a normal method.

As a typical method of embedding a digital watermark, in the case of a digital image, there is a method of embedding a digital watermark by performing an operation on a data value of digital content corresponding to the hue, brightness, etc. of a pixel. A typical example of this method is to divide the digital content into blocks, and add a predetermined watermark pattern that is a combination of +1 and -1 for each block.
There is a method of arc company, US Pat. No. 5,636,292.

As another method of embedding a digital watermark, frequency conversion such as fast Fourier transform, discrete cosine transform, wavelet transform is performed on digital contents,
There is a method of embedding by performing inverse frequency conversion after adding watermark information to the frequency domain.

[0009] In the above method by the fast Fourier transform, the input content is spread by adding a PN sequence,
Divided into blocks. Fourier transform is applied to each block, and 1-bit watermark information is embedded in each block. The block in which the watermark information is embedded is subjected to inverse Fourier transform, and the same PN sequence as that at the beginning is added again to obtain the content in which the digital watermark is embedded. this is,
Onishi, Oka, Matsui Details on "PN image signature method".

The discrete cosine transform method is divided into blocks and discrete cosine transform is performed for each block.
After embedding 1-bit information in one block, inverse conversion is performed to generate a digital watermark embedded content. This is Nakamura, Ogawa, and Takashima, "Digital watermarking method in the frequency domain for digital image copyright protection," 1997.
, Cryptography and Information Security Symposium Proceedings,
Details on SCIS '97 -27A.

The method based on the wavelet transform is a method that does not require the input content to be divided into blocks. This is detailed in Ishizuka, Sakai, and Sakurai, "Experimental Consideration on Security and Reliability of Digital Watermarking Technology Using Wavelet Transform," 1997, Symposium on Cryptography and Information Security, SCIS '97 -26D.

Copyright information and user information are typical examples of information embedded as digital watermarks in digital contents by the above-described methods. By embedding the copyright information, the user can know that the digital content is copyrighted and who the copyright is.

By embedding the user information,
Various user services that utilize this information can be provided. However, in the conventional public print system or public print service method, the utilization of the information embedded in the digital watermark has not been sufficiently taken into consideration.

[0014]

As described in the above-mentioned conventional example, the conventional public print system or public print service method does not consider the use of information embedded in a digital watermark.

The present invention has been made to solve the above problems, and facilitates promotion for users of public print services or public print service methods by utilizing information embedded in digital watermarks. The purpose is to do.

[0016]

To achieve the above object, the present invention provides a means for generating output data that can be output by a predetermined output device from information including digital content, and a digital watermark for the digital content. Means for extracting the embedded information embedded as, the means for transferring the output data and the extracted embedded information to the processing device for calculating the accounting for printing, and the accounting information for the processing device for performing the accounting calculation. And a data output control device having a means for obtaining and displaying, and a predetermined discount is applied to a charge for printing the information including the digital content when the information matches a predetermined condition based on the embedded information. To have a charge settlement processing device including a means for performing the payment and a means for actually performing the payment by adding the discount from the discount information. Providing public printing system or the like, characterized.

[0017]

BEST MODE FOR CARRYING OUT THE INVENTION Embodiments of the present invention will be described below with reference to the drawings.

FIG. 1 is a print control device (printer driver) as a data output control device according to an embodiment of the present invention.
And print data transmitted from the data output control device via the Internet, transfer the print data to a print server, which will be described later, and acquire the print data transmitted from the center server and the fee approval process. 1 shows a schematic configuration of an entire printing system configured by using a print server and a printing device (printer).

This public print system comprises the components described below. Reference numeral 10 is a customer (hereinafter referred to as user) who orders printing (printing), 11 is a computer terminal 11 for ordering printing, 20 is a network such as the Internet, 30 is a center server, 40 and 50 are shops, and 12 is a computer terminal 11. An application running on the computer 13, a printer driver operating on the computer terminal 11, a print data transfer unit 14 for transmitting print data generated by the printer driver to the center server 30, and a reference numeral 15 for information including digital contents for which a print order is desired. Yes, 31 is a billing information generation unit that analyzes the embedded information of the print data transmitted from the computer terminal and generates billing information including discount information, 32 is a fee settlement processing unit that pays the fee for printing, 41 indicates information including digital contents for which a print order has been placed The print server 42 operation unit for operating the print server for printing control, 43 is a printer that actually prints the digital content. Print server 41, operation unit 4
2. The printer 43 is installed in the shop 40,
As shown in the shop 50, a plurality of shops having the same configuration as the shop 40 can exist.

FIG. 2 shows the configuration of the computer terminal 11.
It is a more detailed representation. The computer terminal 11 reads information including digital content as shown in 15 from the outside and converts the image data generated by the application software 12 and the application software 12 having a function of processing the information into a print command of the printer 43. The printer driver 13 is provided.

The printer driver 13 extracts the digital watermark embedded in the digital content from the information including the digital content generated by the application software 12 and extracts the digital watermark.
1 and a print data generation unit 133. The embedded information and the print data generated in this way are sent to the print data transfer unit 14 and sent to the center server 30 via the network 20.

3 and 4 are flow charts showing the processing flow of the embodiment of the present invention. FIG. 3 shows the flow of the entire processing from the start to the end of printing, and FIG. 4 shows the details of the print job generation processing on the computer terminal 11.

FIG. 5 shows the structure of a print job generated by the printer driver 13. A print job generated by the printer driver includes print job attributes 502 including billing information 503, which is information necessary for payment of a print fee, embedded information 504 of digital content, and print instruction information 505, and actual print data 510. Has been done. FIG. 6 shows an example of information including digital contents when the user 10 prints using this system. In the figure, 601 to 6 surrounded by ellipses
06 is an example of digital content extracted by a digital watermark extraction unit described later.

FIG. 7 shows a concrete example of the print job attribute 502 shown in FIG.

FIG. 8 shows an example of the user interface for confirming the charge of the print job displayed on the computer terminal to the user 10.

FIG. 9 shows the application software 12
An example of a user interface for selecting the printer driver 13 in this embodiment is shown more.

FIG. 10 shows an example of attribute information generated by extracting a digital watermark.

FIG. 11 shows information on the types of digital watermarks and the corresponding discount rates for printing charges. Information about the electronic watermark and the corresponding discount rate is built in the billing information generating unit 31 of the center server 30.

FIG. 12 shows the information necessary for calculating the billing information. Similar to the information about the discount rate shown in FIG. 11, these pieces of information are also stored in the billing information generating unit 31.

FIG. 13 is a specific example of the billing information generated by the billing information generating unit 31 of the center server 30.

The details of this embodiment will be described below step by step with reference to the flow charts of FIGS.

In FIG. 1, the user activates the application software 12 operating on the computer terminal 11, and the information 15 including the digital contents is provided on the computer terminal 11 such as FD (flexible disk), HD (hard disk), CD-. The application software 12 is read into the application software 12 from a web server or the like via a recording medium such as a ROM or a DVD or a network, and interactive processing for information processing, editing, and printing order is performed. The print order by the user is displayed in the print dialog shown in FIG.
Start by selecting "Public Print Client" and clicking the "OK" button. By pressing the "OK" button,
The processing of step S301 (detailed processing is described in FIG. 4) starts, but the user makes a print order using the user interface displayed by the printer driver 13 that is opened by pressing the “Property (P) ...” button in FIG. 9 in advance. User information (Customer ID, credit card information, etc.) necessary for can be input (not shown). When the printing process of the application software 12 is started by pressing the "OK" button, the application sequentially performs the printing process based on the information including the digital content until the printing is completed via the print API provided by the OS. Go.

This processing will be described with reference to FIG. The printer driver 13 receives the print processing request of the application software 12 via the print API provided by the OS as described above, and advances the processing. First, GDI (Graphics Device Inter
A print command is acquired from the application software 12 via (face) (S401). Next, it is determined whether the acquired print command is a print end command (S40).
2). As a result of the determination, the process when the print end command is given will be described later. If it is not the print end command, it is determined whether or not the subsequently received command is a bitmap drawing command (S403). Whether or not it is a bitmap drawing command can be determined by determining whether or not the acquired print command is a command related to bitmap drawing. Specifically, BitBlt, SetDIBitsToDevice, StretchBl that the printer driver 13 prepares for GDI.
It is determined by calling the I / F for bitmap processing such as t and StretchDIBtis. For example, when the information as shown in FIG. 6 is ordered to be printed, the portion surrounded by an ellipse in the drawing is printed by the I / F for bitmap processing of the type described above. If the result of the determination is that it is not a bitmap drawing command, the print data corresponding to the received command is used as the print data generation unit 1 provided in the printer driver 13.
It is generated by 33 (S407), and the process returns to S401 again. If the result of the determination is that it is a bitmap drawing command, an attempt is made to extract a digital watermark from the bitmap acquired from the application software 12 via GDI by the digital watermark extraction unit 131 provided in the printer driver 13 ( S404). When this extraction processing is completed, subsequently, the digital watermark extraction unit 131 provided in the printer driver 13 determines whether or not a detectable digital watermark has been extracted (S405). As a result of the determination, if the digital watermark is not extracted, the print data generating unit 133 generates print data (S407), and the process returns to S401. When the digital watermark is extracted, attribute information is subsequently generated (S406).

As shown in FIG. 10, the digital watermarks detected in this embodiment are roughly classified into copyright information and user information. Of the bitmaps passed to the printer driver 13 by the six bitmap drawing commands shown in FIG. 6, the digital watermark information is included in the bitmaps 601 and 602 as shown in FIG. The copyright information is "Cop
yright CANON INC. 2000 ”, user information is“ Canon Log
It is "o". In the 602, the copyright information is "Copyright CANON INC. 2000" and the user information is "ID =
Canon IXY Digital ”. The attribute information is generated sequentially for the bitmaps being processed,
The attribute information is sequentially added every time a detectable digital watermark is detected during the printing process. In addition, in FIG.
The ID is provided for the sake of convenience in explaining the present embodiment in order to clarify the relationship in the description with FIG. 6, and is not necessarily required in actual processing. After the processing of S406 is completed, as in the case where the digital watermark is not detected,
The print data generation unit 133 generates print data (S
407), and the process returns to S401 again. In this way, until the print end command is obtained, the print data is generated,
The process of detecting the digital watermark and generating the attribute information is repeated.

It should be noted that the print job attribute 502 shown in FIG. 5 is generated, although no particular process is mentioned in the description of this embodiment. The generated print job attribute has a structure largely shown in FIG. 5, and an example of the print job attribute is shown in FIG. In the example shown in FIG. 7, the information generated during the printing process is represented by a shaded character string in the Tag field. For example, JOBID used to identify a print job until completion of printing, paper type (Media), paper size (Paper size), and duplex (Dup) of print instruction information 505.
lex), Finishing, Number of copies (Number of
Pages), number of pages printed (Impression Count), number of pages printed (Number of Pages), page layout (Page Layo
ut) each information.

When it is determined in S402 that the print end command is issued during the print process, the print job attribute generation process is performed (S408). Here, billing information 503 is generated. Of the accounting information (Account Info) shown in FIG. 7,
Customer ID, credit card company to be charged (CARD ISSUER), credit card number (CREDI
T CARD No.), personal identification number (PIN No.) information, and
The print destination specified store information (Destination Store ID) is input by the user 10 from the user interface provided by the printer driver 13, which is not particularly shown in the present embodiment, and the print destination specified store information is stored in the external storage device provided in the computer terminal. Are stored as they are, and other information is encrypted and stored. In S408, these pieces of information are read from the external storage device to generate the information. Information other than the print destination designated store information is set in the encrypted state on the billing information 503 as well.
Information about print job retention period (Expiration Date
Time) is automatically generated so that it will be 0:00, 10 days after the request for printing. In the example shown in FIG. 7, the print request date is December 18, 2000, and the print job holding deadline is December 28, 2000, 0:00. Further, here, the digital content embedding information 504 is based on the digital content embedding information generated in S406.
To generate. Then, the generated print job attribute is incorporated into the print job as a part of the print job. Then, the print job is transferred to the print data transfer unit 14. (S
409)

The print job generation processing in the computer terminal of S301 described with reference to FIG. 4 is completed as described above, and the processing shifts to the print job transfer processing shown in FIG. 3 (S3).
02). Here, the print data transfer unit 14 transmits the print job to the center server 30 via the network 20, and at the same time, the print job is received by the center server 30. When the print job is received by the center server 30, the charge information generation unit 31 of the center server executes the charge calculation for the print and the print job is registered in the center server (S303).
The billing information regarding the printing fee is as shown in FIG. 13, and is related to the print job by the JOB ID.
It is managed by the center server. Actual billing information (Price before discount: Gross Price, Discount amount: Discount, Charge amount: T
The total amount is calculated and set by the following procedure.

First, the price before discount: Gross Price is the Job Attributes of the print job: Media, Paper Size, Duple
x, Color, Finishing, Number of Copies, Impression
It is calculated from each set value of Count and the charging unit price table shown in FIG. Gross Price = {Paper Size * (Media + Duplex + Color) * Impression Count / 2 + Finishing} * Number of Copies = {10 * (1.0 + 1.5 + 4.0) * 20/2 + 50} * 1 = \ 750

Discount amount: Discount is calculated by using the digital watermark attribute information (digital content attribute information) shown in FIG. 7 incorporated in the print job and the information indicating the discount rate of the print fee shown in FIG. The discount application rule is shown in FIG. 1 when there is a match between the user information in the digital watermark attribute information and the user information in the print charge discount table.
The discount rate set in the user information matched in 1 is applied. When a plurality of digital watermark attributes match the user information shown in FIG. 11, the discount rate to be applied is the sum of them. In this embodiment, as a result of printing the information shown in FIG. 6, two pieces of digital watermark attribute information are generated as shown in FIG. Figure 1 shows the user information “Canon Logo” and “Canon IXY Digital” of these two attribute information.
Compared with the user information shown in 1, the matching user information was found and the discount rate for each was Canon Logo = 5
%, Canon IXY Digital = 5%. Therefore, the discount rate is calculated as follows: Discount = Gross Price * (0.05 + 0.05) = 750 * 0.1
0 = \ 75 Billing amount: Total Amount is calculated as follows from the price before discount: Gross Price and discount amount: Discount calculated above. Total Amount = Gross Price-Discount = 750-75 =
\ 675

When the billing calculation process is completed in the center server, the billing information is transmitted from the center server 30 to the computer terminal 11 via the network 20, and at the same time, the billing information is received in the computer terminal 11. (S304). When the billing information is received at the computer terminal 11, as shown in FIG. 8, a dialog for requesting the user 10 to confirm the printing fee is displayed on a display device such as a CRT connected to the computer terminal 11 (S).
305). As shown in Figure 8, this dialog is OK.
There are two buttons, “Cancel” and “Cancel”, and the user 10 can select one of the buttons and press it to select a process. The determination as to which button has been pressed is performed at S306. If "Cancel" is selected, the print process is stopped and the print job registered in the center server 30 is deleted (S3).
20) The printing process is completed. On the other hand, when “OK” is selected, the print processing of the print job registered in the center server 30 is continued. The center server 30 stores a storage period until the print request for the registered print job is instructed to the center server 30 from the operation unit 42 included in the print server 41 installed in the shop 40 or without receiving the print request. The print job registered in the center server 30 is held until the time elapses and the deadline has passed. Determining whether the storage period has expired (S307)
Then, the determination process is repeated until a print request from the operation unit 42 of the user 10 is received (S308). When the storage period has passed and the deadline has passed, the print job stored on the center server 30 is deleted (S320), and the printing process is completed. When the print request from the user 10 is received, the center server 30 performs the print fee settlement process based on the billing information shown in FIGS. 7 and 15. In the case of the example shown in this embodiment, the card company ABC is charged 675 yen together with the user's card number xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx and personal identification number xxxx. (S309) The billing transaction is immediately sent to the transaction server (not shown) of the card company ABC via the network 20. Subsequently, the print job stored in the center server 30 is transferred to the print server 41 installed in the shop 40 (S310), and the print server receiving the print job transmits the print data 510 to the printer 43 to print. I do.

In this way, the user 10 designates the shop 4 designated when the user makes a print request at the computer terminal 11.
JOB ID 20001218 shown in FIG. 7 from the operation unit 42 of the print server 41 installed in the shop 40.
By inputting 0013015, the requested printed matter is received from the printer 43.

According to another embodiment, as shown in FIG. 14, the computer terminal 11 is not provided with the center server 30.
The shop 40 may directly receive the print job via the network 20, and the print server 41 in the shop may be provided with the function of the center server 30 described in the above embodiment.

According to another embodiment, as shown in FIG. 15, a process of calculating the discount rate based on the information indicating the upper limit of the discount rate may be added to the charging calculation process S303 shown in FIG. As shown in FIG. 15, when the upper limit of the discount rate is 5%, the number of bitmaps to be discounted is 2 in the above embodiment.
There is a discount rate of 5% for each, and a total discount of 10% is set in the Discount Rate column shown in FIG. 16, but in the present embodiment, the upper limit discount rate is set to 5% in FIG. Therefore, 5% is set in the Discount Rate in the table as shown in FIG. Therefore, Gross Price and Discoun in FIG.
The amounts of t and Total Amount are also as shown in FIG. Canon Cano in the information showing the discount rate shown in FIG.
Although the bureau discount rate is 10%, the upper limit of the discount rate is set to 5% in FIG. 15, so the bit that has the user information of the Canon Canobureau digital watermark is included in the information requested by the user for printing. Printing fees are not discounted even if the map is included.

In the present invention, the information embedded in the digital content is used as the embedded information by the digital watermark. However, in general, the image data or the like can hold the tag information, and the information may be applied to the present invention. .

Furthermore, the present invention is applied to a system composed of a plurality of devices (eg, host computer, interface device, reader, printer, etc.), but also to a device composed of one device (eg, copying machine, facsimile machine). You may.

Further, the functions of the above-described embodiments are implemented by a computer in an apparatus or system connected to the various devices so that the various devices are operated to implement the functions of the above-described embodiments. What is implemented by supplying the program code of software for operating the above-mentioned various devices according to the program stored in the computer (CPU or MPU) of the system or apparatus is also included in the scope of the present invention.

Further, in this case, the program code itself of the software realizes the function of the above-described embodiment, and the program code itself constitutes the present invention. As a transmission medium of the program code, a communication medium (a wired line such as an optical fiber or a wireless line) in a computer network (LAN, WAN such as the Internet, a wireless communication network, etc.) system for propagating and supplying the program information as a carrier wave. Etc.) can be used.

Further, means for supplying the program code to the computer, for example, a recording medium storing the program code constitutes the present invention. A flexible disk, a hard disk, an optical disk, a magneto-optical disk, a CD-ROM, a magnetic tape, a non-volatile memory card, a ROM, or the like can be used as a recording medium for storing the program code.

Further, not only the functions of the above-described embodiments are realized by executing the supplied program code by the computer, but also the OS (operating system) in which the program code is operating in the computer or other It goes without saying that the program code is also included in the embodiment of the present invention when the functions of the above-described embodiment are realized in cooperation with the application software of the above.

Further, after the supplied program code is stored in the memory provided in the function expansion board of the computer or the function expansion unit connected to the computer, the function expansion board or function expansion unit is instructed based on the instruction of the program code. It goes without saying that the present invention also includes a case where the CPU or the like included in the above-mentioned performs some or all of the actual processing and the functions of the above-described embodiments are realized by the processing.

Of course, the computer may be a general computer as shown in FIG. FIG. 17 is a diagram showing an internal configuration of a general personal user terminal device.

In FIG. 17, reference numeral 1200 is a computer PC. The PC 1200 includes a CPU 1201,
ROM 1202 or hard disk (HD) 1211
The device control software stored in the HDD or supplied from the flexible disk drive (FD) 1212 is executed to collectively control each device connected to the system bus 1204.

The CPU 1201 of the PC 1200, the RO
The function of each unit of the present embodiment is realized by the program stored in the M1202 or the hard disk (HD) 1211.

Reference numeral 1203 is a RAM, which functions as a main memory and a work area of the CPU 1201. A keyboard controller (KBC) 1205 is a keyboard (K
B) Control instruction input from 1209 or a device (not shown).

Reference numeral 1206 denotes a CRT controller (CRT
C) controls the display on the CRT display (CRT) 1210. 1207 is a disk controller (DK
In C), a boot program (startup program: a program for starting execution (operation) of hardware or software of a personal computer), a plurality of applications, edit files, user files, a hard disk (HD) 1211 for storing a network management program, and the like, and It controls access to the flexible disk (FD) 1212.

Reference numeral 1208 denotes a network interface card (NIC), which is connected to the network printer, another network device, or another P device via the LAN 1220.
It exchanges bidirectional data with C.

It should be noted that the shapes and structures of the respective portions shown in the above-mentioned embodiments are merely examples of the embodiment in carrying out the present invention, and the technical scope of the present invention is thereby provided. It should not be construed as limiting. That is, the present invention can be implemented in various forms without departing from the spirit or the main features thereof.

[0058]

As described above, according to the present invention,
Use of public printing for users by creating a mechanism to generate discount information based on a digital watermark embedded in digital content and use that information to settle the print charge settlement process. As well as providing a means of promotion to increase the frequency, we can expect the synergistic effect of further increasing the frequency of use of public prints through the discount processing that links the public print system and application software that can embed digital watermarks. Become. Further, since the billing calculation process is performed on the center server, for example, the billing calculation method such as the setting of the discount rate may be changed only by changing the billing information generation unit of the center server.

According to still another aspect of the present invention, since the print job can be directly transmitted to the shop, it is possible to save the time required to issue a print instruction from the operation unit and the time to receive the print job from the center server. Therefore, there is also an effect that the time is short.

According to still another aspect of the present invention, by setting an upper limit of the discount rate, an excessive discount occurs even when a print request for information including a bitmap having a plurality of electronic watermarks to be discounted is made, There is an effect that it is possible to prevent the reduction of the printing fee.

[Brief description of drawings]

FIG. 1 is a block diagram showing a schematic configuration of a public print system in an embodiment of the present invention.

FIG. 2 is a block diagram showing the configuration of a computer terminal that constitutes a part of the public print system in the embodiment of the present invention.

FIG. 3 is a diagram showing a processing flow showing an embodiment of the present invention.

FIG. 4 is a diagram showing a processing flow showing a print job generation processing in the embodiment of the present invention.

FIG. 5 is a diagram illustrating a configuration of a print job generated by a printer driver according to the embodiment of this invention.

FIG. 6 is a diagram showing an example of information including digital contents according to an embodiment of the present invention.

FIG. 7 is a diagram showing an example of the print job attributes shown in FIG. 5 according to the embodiment of the present invention.

FIG. 8 is a diagram illustrating an example of a user interface for confirming transmission of a print job according to the embodiment of this invention.

FIG. 9 is a diagram showing an example of a method of selecting a printer driver from application software according to the embodiment of the present invention.

FIG. 10 is a diagram showing an example of attribute information generated by extraction of a digital watermark in the embodiment of the present invention.

FIG. 11 is a diagram showing types of electronic watermarks and information about discount rates of printing charges corresponding to the types of electronic watermarks according to the embodiment of the present invention.

FIG. 12 is a diagram showing information necessary for calculating billing information according to the embodiment of the present invention.

FIG. 13 is a diagram showing an example of billing information according to another embodiment of the present invention.

FIG. 14 is a block diagram showing a schematic configuration of a public print system in another embodiment of the present invention.

FIG. 15 is a diagram showing an example in which an upper limit value of a discount rate is provided in another embodiment of the present invention.

16 is a diagram showing an example of charging information shown in FIG. 13 in another embodiment of the present invention.

FIG. 17 is a diagram showing a general computer.

[Explanation of symbols]

11 computer terminals 30 center server 31 Billing information generator 32 Charge settlement processing section 43,53 printer

Front page continuation (51) Int.Cl. ⁷ Identification code FI theme code (reference) B41J 29/00 G06F 3/12 A G06F 3/12 G06T 1/00 500B G06T 1/00 500 H04N 1/387 ZEC H04N 1 / 387 ZEC B41J 29/00 ZF term (reference) 2C061 AP01 CL10 2C187 AE13 BF24 BG14 DB42 GD02 5B021 AA04 CC02 NN18 5B057 AA11 CB19 CE08 CE09 CG07 DA06 DA16 5C076 AA14 BA06

Claims (8)

[Claims] 1. A means for generating output data that can be output by a predetermined output device from information including digital content, an extraction means for extracting embedded information embedded in the digital content as a digital watermark, and the output data. And a data output control device including means for transferring the extracted embedded information to a processing device that performs printing accounting calculation, and means for acquiring and displaying the accounting information from the processing device performing the accounting calculation, Based on the information, when the information matches a predetermined condition, a means for performing a predetermined discount on the charge for printing the information including the digital content, and an actual charge considering the discount from the discount information. A public print system, comprising: a fee payment processing device including means for performing payment. 2. A billing calculation for obtaining a discount by acquiring the output data generated by the data output control device and the embedded information of the digital content, a printing process, and
The public print system according to claim 1, further comprising an output device that performs a charge settlement process together. 3. A process of performing a billing calculation including means for setting an upper limit to the discount amount and performing a discount amount indicating the upper limit when exceeding the upper limit when performing the billing calculation with the discount from the embedded information of the digital content. The public printing system according to claim 1, further comprising a device. 4. A step of generating output data that can be output by a predetermined output device from information including digital content, an extraction step of extracting embedded information embedded in the digital content as a digital watermark, and the output data. And a step of transferring the extracted embedded information to a processing device that performs printing accounting calculation, a step of acquiring and displaying the accounting information from the processing device performing the accounting calculation, and the information based on the embedded information. And a step of performing a predetermined discount on the charge for printing the information including the digital content when the above condition is met, and a step of performing the actual charge settlement by adding the discount from the discount information. A public print service method characterized by the above. 5. A billing calculation for obtaining the output data and the embedded information of the digital content and discounting it.
The public print service method according to claim 4, further comprising a step of performing both print processing and fee settlement processing. 6. When performing a billing calculation accompanied by a discount from the embedded information of the digital content, a step of setting a maximum limit on the discount amount and performing a billing calculation showing the upper limit when the upper limit is exceeded is included. The public print service method according to claim 4, which is characterized in that. 7. A computer readable program storing a program for realizing each means of the public print system according to any one of claims 1 to 3 and each step of the public print service method according to any one of claims 4 to 6 by a computer. Storage medium. 8. A program for realizing each means of the public print system according to any one of claims 1 to 3 and each step of the public print service method according to any one of claims 4 to 6 on a computer.