JP5276364B2 - Search system, information processing apparatus and control method thereof - Google Patents

Abstract

<P>PROBLEM TO BE SOLVED: To solve the problem that a search result is displayed so that a print-permitted content and an unpermitted content are intermingled, a user who wants to print cannot determine immediately which content is permitted for printing. <P>SOLUTION: A server 103 searches content associated with a retrieval request including a query keyword sent from a client 101, and sends it to the client 101 the query keyword together with attribute information on the retrieved content. The client 101 controls the display of the retrieved content according to the information on the query keyword, the attribute information and print environment of a printer 104. <P>COPYRIGHT: (C)2010,JPO&amp;INPIT

Description

  The present invention relates to a search system, an information processing apparatus, and a control method for searching for content.

In recent years, on the Internet and the like, various vendors provide online book search services. In this service, first, browsing software called a browser is opened on a client computer (PC) connected to a network, and a site providing a book search service is accessed using the browser. At that time, in the client PC, when a search keyword is input and a search is instructed, the search keyword is sent to the server. Upon receiving this, the server searches the held database based on the keyword, and transmits a list of relevant book candidates to the client PC. The PC that has received the message displays the list on the display, and the user can select a desired book from the list and perform browsing or printing.
JP 2002-176551 A JP 2004-287994 A

  However, there are two major problems with the online book search service currently provided.

  First, with the current service, the contents of a book can be browsed in whole or in part only if the copyright of the retrieved book is invalid or the copyright holder permits it. In addition, when a user tries to print a desired page with, for example, a printer connected to a client PC, a mechanism is provided in which printing is not permitted for books that are not permitted to be printed. This means that if even part of the book's content is printed, the printed paper can be further duplicated, and the copy will be available and the number of books sold will be reduced. This is because there may be a disadvantage. Therefore, even if the user performs a keyword search of a book online and wants to print only a desired page, it is impossible to realize it with the current system.

  The second is convenience. It is assumed that the first problem is solved by some method and printing is possible from the online search result. At that time, with the current service, it is impossible to determine which book is most suitable for printing. For example, some of the retrieved books may be printed freely without copyright, while others may not be printed because the right holder does not permit it. However, if a search result is displayed in a state where these are mixed, it is impossible for a user who desires printing to immediately determine which can be printed and which cannot be printed.

  Japanese Patent Application Laid-Open No. 2004-228561 describes that content embedded with a digital watermark corresponding to an output device ID is provided via a network so that printing can be performed only by a specific output device. However, it does not mention online document search or controlling the display order of search results.

  Patent Document 2 describes a technology that can appropriately control whether or not to lend and whether or not to print based on the relationship between content attributes and predetermined users (such as age restrictions) when using an electronic library service. However, there is no description such as adding a digital watermark to the printed material or determining whether printing is possible according to the search result and the printing environment on the client side.

  An object of the present invention is to solve the above-mentioned problems of the prior art.

  A feature of the present invention is to provide a service that is extremely convenient for a user who wants to print the contents of the searched content.

  Furthermore, it is possible to prevent the content copyright holder and publisher from being disadvantaged.

In order to achieve the above object, a search system according to an aspect of the present invention has the following arrangement. That is,
A search system for transmitting a search request from a client to a server and transmitting a search result in the server to the client,
The server
Search for content corresponding to a search request including a search keyword from the client, and send to the client together with information about the search keyword and attribute information of the searched content,
The client
A printing environment acquisition unit that acquires a printing environment in a printing unit that prints the searched content ;
Display control means for controlling display of the searched content according to the information on the search keyword, the attribute information, and the printing environment;
I have a,
The display control unit controls display of the searched content according to at least the number of appearances of the search keyword in the printable region when a printable region is designated for the content. It is characterized by that.

  According to the present invention, it is possible to provide a highly convenient service for a user who wants to print the content of a searched content.

  Hereinafter, preferred embodiments of the present invention will be described in detail with reference to the accompanying drawings. The following embodiments do not limit the present invention according to the claims, and all combinations of features described in the embodiments are not necessarily essential to the solution means of the present invention. . In the following embodiment, a book search will be described as an example. However, the present invention can be applied to a case of searching for a more general document or image.

  FIG. 1 is a diagram showing an outline of a book search system (document search system) according to an embodiment of the present invention.

  In the present embodiment, a client PC (information processing apparatus) 101 and a server 103 are connected to the network 105. A printer 104 is connected to the client PC 101. The server 103 also includes a search DB 102 that stores book information.

  When a user of the client PC 101 inputs a book search keyword online, a search request including a user ID and a search keyword is transmitted from the client PC to the server 103. In response to this, the server 103 searches the search DB 102 and transmits the search result to the client PC 101 that is the request source.

  For the sake of convenience, the figure shows an example in which one client PC, one server, and one printer exist, but the present invention is not limited to this. For example, there may be a plurality of servers for performing a search, and a plurality of client PCs may be connected to the network.

  FIG. 2 is a block diagram illustrating an example of a hardware configuration of the client PC 101 according to the present embodiment. Since the hardware configuration of the PC 101 is common to that of a general personal computer (PC), the configuration will be briefly described.

  The client PC 101 includes a CPU 201, a ROM 202 that stores a boot program and various data, and a RAM 203 that provides a work area during processing of the CPU 201 and in which a program is loaded. The secondary storage device 204 is a mass storage device such as a hard disk drive. Furthermore, the client PC 101 has a user interface 205 including a keyboard and a pointing device, a display unit 206, and a network interface 207 for connecting to the network 105. Furthermore, a serial interface 208 such as a USB for connecting to an external device such as the printer 104 is provided. These are connected to the system bus 211 and operate under the control of the CPU 201. Since the configuration of the server 103 shown in FIG. 1 is similar to the configuration of the PC 101, the description thereof is omitted.

  Various application programs executed by the CPU 201 are installed in the secondary storage device 204, and are loaded into the RAM 203 and executed at the time of execution.

  FIG. 3 is a block diagram illustrating an example of a hardware configuration of the printer 104 according to the present embodiment.

  Similarly to the client PC 101, the printer 104 also includes a CPU 302, a ROM 303, a RAM 304, and a printer engine 306 for performing print processing. In recent years, a multifunction device having a scanner function has emerged in printers. Here, a scanner engine 308 for reading a document is provided. The display unit 307 also has a touch panel function for performing various settings such as paper and print quality when performing printing. A user interface 309 detects user operations on the touch panel and performs various displays. The serial interface 310 is an interface such as a USB for connecting to the client PC 101. These units are connected to the CPU 302 via the system bus 311. In addition to the above, various elements can be considered as components of the printer 104. For example, a power supply unit, a feeder unit for handling paper, a reader unit for reading image information from a memory card, an interface for directly connecting to a network, and the like. However, since these are not directly referred to in the present embodiment, they are omitted here. The printer engine 306 may be any system such as an ink jet system or an electrophotographic system.

  FIG. 4 is a diagram for explaining the flow of data in the book search system according to the present embodiment.

  When a search keyword is sent from the client PC 101 to the server 103, the server 103 searches for book data stored in the search DB 102 based on the keyword. The search result obtained in this way is sent from the server 103 to the client PC 101. Here, when printing the retrieved book data, the client PC 101 instructs the printer 104 to send print data (print information) together with the watermark information to be printed. Note that examples of cases where the retrieved book data can be printed include a case where no copyright is set for the book, or a case where the copyright holder or publisher permits printing.

  FIG. 5 is a flowchart for explaining processing in the client PC 101 according to the present embodiment. A program for executing this processing is installed in the secondary storage device 204, loaded into the RAM 203 at the time of execution, and executed under the control of the CPU 201.

  First, in step S1, the user of the client PC 101 inputs a search keyword for a book (such as a document) to be searched.

  FIG. 6 is a diagram illustrating an example of an input screen for a book search site by the browser of the client PC 101 according to the first embodiment.

  The keyword is input to the keyword input area 602 of the browser displayed on the display unit 206. In the figure, an example in which “image correction” is input as a keyword is shown. After the input, the cursor 604 is moved to instruct the search button 603 and, for example, a click operation is performed, so that the input keyword is transmitted to the server 103 via the network 105 (step S2).

  Upon receiving this keyword, the server 103 accesses the search DB 102 held by itself, and lists books including the keyword. Here, it is possible to search based on whether the keyword is included in the title or in the document. The search DB 102 is generated by scanning a book for each page, converting the contents into electronic data by OCR or the like, and further creating a dictionary for each predetermined keyword by syntax analysis. There are many known techniques regarding such DB generation and search methods, and in this embodiment, the search method is not limited to a specific method. The search results in the server 103 are collected in a list and sent to the client PC 101 together with content attributes (attribute information). This content attribute includes the title of the book containing the keyword, publisher, author, date of publication, and the like. Furthermore, a thumbnail image of the title page is also included.

  As a result, when the client PC 101 receives this search result from the server 103 via the network 105 in step S3, the process proceeds to step S4. In step S4, the received search result is displayed together with the thumbnail image of the title page included in the content attribute, as shown in FIG.

  FIG. 7 is a diagram showing a display example of book search results by the browser of the client PC 101 according to the first embodiment.

  In the figure, reference numeral 701 denotes an area for displaying a list of search results. In the present embodiment, as indicated by reference numeral 702, thumbnail images (A, E, F) of the title page are displayed side by side in the vertical direction. Further, as indicated by reference numeral 703, a content attribute such as a book name and a publisher is displayed beside each thumbnail image. Reference numeral 705 denotes a display example of Internet site names (SiteA, SiteB, SiteC) from which these books can be purchased. The user can specify a desired book by moving the cursor 604 using a pointing device such as a mouse and specifying a thumbnail image 702. A site where the book is to be purchased can be designated from the sites displayed in 705.

  Next, proceeding to step S5 in FIG. 5, the user operates the cursor 604 on the screen shown in FIG. 7 to select a desired book. As a result, the display screen changes as shown in FIG. 8, and the inside of the book can be browsed.

  FIG. 8 is a diagram illustrating a display example by the browser when the user of the client PC 101 designates a desired book.

  In the figure, in the left area 801, the thumbnail of the title page of the selected book (here A) and the content attribute of the book (A) displayed in 703 of FIG. 7 are displayed. In the right area 805, as described in FIG. 7, a hyperlink to an Internet site where the book can be purchased is displayed. Reference numeral 802 denotes a display area for the contents of the book (A). By specifying the “previous page” or “next page” at the bottom, the previous page or the next page of the current page displayed in 802 can be displayed.

  In this embodiment, “print designation” 804 is displayed at the bottom of the screen shown in FIG. The user can issue a print instruction to print the page displayed in 802 by pointing and clicking this portion with the cursor 604.

  Returning to the flowchart of FIG. 5 again, in step S6, it is determined whether “print designation” 804 is instructed and a print instruction is input. If a print instruction is input here, the process proceeds to step S7. If no print instruction is input, the process may return to step S1 to perform another keyword search, or the process may proceed to step S5. The contents may be selected.

  If a print instruction is input, in step S7, digital watermark data corresponding to the search result transmitted from the server 103, the content attribute of the book selected for printing, and the print environment of the client PC 101 is generated. This is because if the print data of the retrieved book is generated and printed as it is, the printed matter may be freely copied. Accordingly, it is an object of the present invention to limit the reproduction of the printed matter by digital watermark so as not to give a disadvantage to the copyright holder or publisher of the book.

  FIG. 9 is a diagram illustrating an example of a format of digital watermark information generated by the client PC 101 according to the present embodiment.

  The digital watermark marker 901 is, for example, 4 bytes and describes an identifier unique to this format. Next, let's look at the data part. This data part is further composed of a head marker 902 of the data part, a size 903 of the data part, and a data area 904 which is the substance of the data part. The head marker 902 of the data part describes an identifier unique to this format, like the digital watermark marker 901. The data portion size 903 indicates the total data size of the data portion, and this may be described by the number of bytes. The data portion size 903 may describe the size of only the data area 904.

  FIG. 10 is a diagram showing a list example of items stored in the data area 904 shown in FIG.

  This item has three categories, and here is composed of “keyword information”, “content attribute”, and “printing environment”. The “keyword information” and “content attribute” are transmitted from the server 103 that has executed the book search to the client PC 101 that has requested the search. The “printing environment” includes information such as the type of the printer 104 connected to the client PC 101, the user who instructed printing, and the time of the user. Information about the printing environment is acquired by mutual communication between the PC 101 and the printer 104 (printing environment acquisition).

  Below, the items of each category will be briefly described.

  Of the items included in the category “keyword information”, “type of included keyword” indicates the input keyword itself. For example, in the example of FIG. 6, two words “image” and “correction” correspond to this. “Keyword appearance frequency” and “keyword appearance position” indicate the number of appearances for each book and the position (page, row, column number) of each keyword word.

  Of the items included in the category “content attribute”, “name”, “author”, “publisher”, “identification code”, and “price” are basic information of the book. “Presence / absence of right” describes whether or not any right such as copyright or copyright is set. “Printable page designation” describes pages that can be printed by the user in the book. “Copyable page designation” describes a page that can be copied by the user in the book. The “number of times printed” describes how many times the book has been printed in the past, and can be paraphrased as information indicating “print popularity”. “Category” indicates the category of the book, such as “document”, “scholarly paper”, “picture book”, “photo book”, “magazine”, and the like. “Protection level” describes how much protection level is set for the document. For example, it is described by expressions such as “high”, “medium”, and “low”. If “high”, printing is prohibited, or only monochrome printing is permitted and copying is not allowed. If “low”, printing and copying are allowed.

  Next, the item “printing user” included in the category “printing environment” describes the name of the user who is going to print. “Print date and time” is the date and time when printing is performed, and “Printer identifier” is the identifier of the printer 104 that performs printing, and corresponds to the product name, serial number, and the like. The “print media identifier” corresponds to the product name or unique ID of the media set in the printer 104. “Number of pages in a book” indicates how many pages of the book the page to be printed is.

  Heretofore, possible information has been briefly described here, but the information may be stored in any state. For example, for the protection levels “high”, “medium”, and “low”, the character code may be stored as it is, or each may be stored as an ID (high = 0, medium = 1, low = 2).

  By including these pieces of information, it is possible to perform appropriate document management, that is, copy suppression control after reading a printed matter to be described later.

  In the flowchart of FIG. 5 again, when the generation of the digital watermark information is completed in step S7, the process proceeds to step S8, and print data is generated based on the digital watermark information and the page information of the book. The generation of the print data is normally performed according to the flow shown in FIG. 11, but this process may be executed by the client PC 101, or all or a part of the process may be executed by the printer 104. When the generation of print data is thus completed, the process proceeds to step S9, where the print data is transmitted to the printer 104 and printed.

  FIG. 11 is a flowchart showing print data generation processing in step S8 of FIG.

  First, in step S11, rendering processing is performed based on information on a page designated for printing and print information (such as the size and quality of paper to be printed), and bitmap data of a region to be printed is generated. Bitmap data is usually described with one-pixel RGB components. In step S12, the bitmap data generated by the rendering process is preprocessed. For example, various image correction processes, hues, and density adjustments are performed. In step S13, the RGB data of each pixel is converted into a device-specific RGB value of the printer 104 to be output, that is, a device RGB (dRGB) value. In step S14, the device RGB values are converted into CMYK values that are toner / ink colors.

  In step S15, pseudo gradation processing such as dithering and error diffusion is performed on the CMYK value.

  In the present embodiment, in the pseudo gradation processing, digital watermark data is multiplexed by the method disclosed in Japanese Patent Application Laid-Open No. 2001-148778 by the applicant of the present application, for example. Various methods have already been proposed for multiplexing digital watermark data on image data. A typical method is to embed additional information in the LSB (least significant bit) of each pixel, or to convert the image into a frequency domain and embed the additional information in a specific frequency band. In the method by the applicant of the present application, the input image information is divided into a plurality of blocks each composed of M × M pixels, and each of the divided blocks is quantized by an error diffusion method. In this quantization, the digital watermark data can be embedded in the input image information by controlling the quantization condition of each block according to the digital watermark data to be multiplexed.

  FIG. 12 is a diagram for explaining the digital watermark data embedding method described above.

  In FIG. 12, the image data included in the print area is divided into blocks each consisting of M × M pixels, and L-bit information is embedded in each block.

  When the printed matter printed in this way is read, the printed matter is read with a scanner, and frequency analysis is performed for each block. In this way, it is possible to restore the additional information embedded in the printed material. By using such a method, it is possible to add several tens to several hundreds (K bytes) of information on the entire surface of the A4 size paper while suppressing image quality deterioration as much as possible.

  In this embodiment, as shown in FIG. 10, an error correction code is further added to the digital watermark data composed of information.

  Returning to step S15 in the flowchart of FIG. 11 again, in pseudo gradation processing, the digital watermark data is subjected to error correction code and shuffling processing and embedded in the bitmap data. As the error correction code, any known method such as a BCH code or a Reed-Solomon code may be used. The shuffling method is used to diffuse errors at the time of information decoding. Since many known techniques have been proposed for this, a description thereof is omitted here.

  In this embodiment, digital watermark embedding is performed in units of N rasters provided in the print area 1301 as shown in FIG.

  FIG. 13 is a diagram for explaining embedding of a digital watermark according to this embodiment.

  Here, a plurality of digital watermark areas 1302 are provided in N raster units in the print area 1301. In this way, the same watermark information is embedded by error correction / shuffling every N rasters. As a result, when reading, it is possible to restore information only by reading the first N raster.

  Each data of CMYK that has been subjected to pseudo gradation processing in the state where the digital watermark is embedded in this manner is subjected to appropriate data compression processing in step S16. Then, print information generation processing for generating print information to which a printer command for controlling the printer engine 306 is added is executed, and the print information is transmitted to the printer 104.

  The above is the flow of processing up to the printing operation in online book search in the client PC 101.

  Hereinafter, with reference to the flowchart of FIG. 14, an operation when a printed material printed according to the flowchart is to be copied will be described. The target reading device here is assumed to be a copier different from the printer 104 that generated the printed matter, a scanner connected to the client PC 101, a scanner engine 308 incorporated in the printer 104 that performed printing, or the like. ing.

  FIG. 14 is a flowchart for explaining processing when a copy instruction for a printed matter printed by the above processing is input. Here, this processing will be described in the case where a document is read using the scanner engine 308 of the printer 104 and printed (copied) by the printer engine 306. Therefore, this process is realized by the CPU 302 executing this control process in accordance with a program stored in the ROM 303 of the printer 104.

  This process is started by placing a document (printed material) to be copied by the user on the reading table of the scanner. First, in step S21, the process waits for an input of a copy operation instruction from the user interface 309. When a copy instruction is input, the process proceeds to step S22, where the scanner engine 308 starts an operation for reading the printed matter, and stores the raster data at the time of reading in the RAM 304.

  As described with reference to FIG. 13, in this embodiment, digital watermark information is embedded in units of N rasters. Therefore, in step S23, it is determined whether or not data for N rasters (predetermined lines) has been read. Here, when the reading of the data for N rasters is not completed, the process proceeds to step S22 and the reading operation is continued. When the image of N rasters is read, the process proceeds to step S24, and the digital watermark data embedded therein is decoded. In general, the digital watermark data can be decoded by reading the data from the printed material, performing a reverse shuffling process, and performing an error correction process.

  Next, the process proceeds to step S25, where it is determined whether copy processing is possible based on the decrypted digital watermark data. In the present embodiment, since the information shown in FIG. 10 is multiplexed and described as digital watermark information, various controls based on this digital watermark are possible.

  For example, referring to the content attribute “replicatable page designation” in FIG. 10 and the “number of pages in the book” of the printing environment, it is determined whether or not the printed matter is included in the reproducible page designation range. it can. If it is included in a page specification range that can be duplicated, copying of the page can be permitted.

  Further, it is possible to determine whether a right such as a copyright or a copyright is set for the printed matter by referring to the content attribute “presence / absence of right”. If these rights are not set, copying is permitted.

  Further, by referring to the “protection level” of the content attribute, it can be determined that copying is permitted when the protection level of the book is set to “low”, for example. Alternatively, when the protection level is set to “high”, it is also possible to control that only monochrome copying is permitted.

  Further, by referring to the “category” of the content attribute, for example, in the case of a non-profit document such as an academic paper, it is possible to control copying.

  Further, by referring to the “printer identifier” of the printing environment, for example, if the printer (device) that printed the printed material is a device that is attempting to copy the printed material, the copying is permitted (or prohibited). Also, it is possible to perform control such that copying is permitted only when the printed device and the device that performs copying are the same and the device can be identified as a copy permission target device.

  As described above, the permission / prohibition of copying can be controlled according to the information of the three categories shown in FIG. However, the present invention is not limited to this. For example, it is included in the scope of the present invention to determine whether copying is possible by combining the information of the above categories.

  If it is determined in step S25 that copying is not possible, the process proceeds to step S26, the scan / copy operation is stopped, and the printed sheet is discharged. A warning message may be displayed on the display unit 307 of the printer 104 or displayed on the PC 101.

  Conversely, if it is determined in step S25 that copying is possible, the process proceeds to step S27, and print data is generated from the scanned data in the same manner as described above. In step S28, the printer engine 306 executes print processing based on the print data.

  As described above, according to the book search system according to the first embodiment, keyword information, content attributes, and information about the printing environment can be multiplexed as digital watermark information on the printed matter of the searched page.

  Also, by comprehensively using the information shown in FIG. 10, it is possible to perform extremely flexible document management when copying a printed matter. This makes it possible to construct an ideal system for users who want convenience and copyright holders and publishers who want to exclude the disadvantages of unauthorized copying.

[Embodiment 2]
Next, a second embodiment of the present invention will be described.

  In the second embodiment, when the content of the search result is displayed as shown in FIG. 7, the content that can be printed is displayed in an identifiable manner. Some of the retrieved books are copyright-free and can be viewed entirely inside, and printing is permitted. If only a part of the book is permitted to be printed, printing is prohibited. There are also things.

  In the book search system according to the second embodiment, in order to improve user convenience, a system that is very convenient for a user who wants to print a searched book is proposed. Note that the configurations of the client PC 101, the printer 104, and the server 103 according to the second embodiment are the same as those of the first embodiment described above, and a description thereof will be omitted. Further, the book search instruction and the processing of the search result are the same as those in the first embodiment.

  FIG. 15 is a diagram illustrating an input screen example of a book search site by a browser of a client PC according to the second embodiment of the present invention.

  As described in the first embodiment, a user who wants to use the print function in the book search system inputs a desired keyword on the browser screen as shown in FIG. 15 and presses the search button 603. At this time, if printing is desired, the check box 1602 is checked in advance. As a result, when the client PC 101 displays a list of search results, it is possible to perform control such as displaying only printable content or preferentially displaying printable content.

  After the search button 603 is pressed, the input keyword is transmitted to the server 103 via the network 105. Upon receiving this keyword, the server 103 searches the held DB 102 and transmits the search result, the keyword information, and the content attribute of the related book to the client PC 101. On the other hand, the client PC 101 can grasp the identifier such as the name of the printer 104 connected to the user who is trying to print, the identifier of the media set in the printer 104, and the like.

  As a result, the client PC 101 collects information as shown in FIG. By utilizing these pieces of information mutually, the display order of the search results for the printable content is controlled, so that the convenience for the user can be improved.

  Hereinafter, a specific example of the control method will be described.

<Example 1>
For example, the following control is possible by using “keyword appearance frequency” of information related to search keywords, “right presence / absence” of content attribute, and “printing user” of printing environment.

  Only when the user who is going to print is registered in advance as a user in the print service for book search, the searched content has no rights such as copyright or copyright, and the content is displayed in the order of the most frequently appearing keywords. Can be displayed. At this time, for a user who desires printing and uses an online book search service, the probability that the content displayed at the top is optimal is high.

<Example 2>
For example, the following control is possible by using the “number of appearances of the keyword” of the information related to the search keyword, the “number of times printed” of the content attribute, and the “printer identifier” of the printing environment.

  The above two values are multiplied or added, and the calculated result is used as the evaluation amount. Then, the order of contents to be displayed in FIG. 16 is determined in the order of the large evaluation amount. At this time, it is determined from the printer identifier whether or not the printer is compatible with this service. If it is determined that the printer is compatible, only printable content is displayed. In other words, the content that exists at the top is optimal for the user who wants to print by arranging in order from the one that contains many specified keywords and that has been printed by other users, that is, the one with the highest print popularity. The probability of being a thing increases.

  FIG. 16 is a view showing a display example of a book search result by the browser of the client PC 101 according to the second embodiment of the present invention, and the same parts as those in FIG. 7 are shown by the same symbols.

  In the first embodiment described above, the list of books as search results is displayed in FIG. 7, whereas in FIG. 16, only a list of printable books is displayed.

<Example 3>
For example, the following control is possible by using the “position where the keyword appears” “number of occurrences of the keyword” of the information on the search keyword in FIG. 10 and the “printable page designation” of the content attribute. is there.

  When the total number of keywords appearing on the printable page is counted and the list is displayed in the order of the total number, there are many input keywords, that is, a page with high user attention can be printed Can display content. At this time, there is a high probability that the content existing at the top is optimal for the user who wants to print.

<Example 4>
For example, the following control is possible by using the “number of occurrences of keyword” of the information related to the search keyword of FIG. 10, the “category” of the content attribute, and the “printer identifier” of the printing environment.

  From the printer identifier, it is determined that the printer 104 connected to the client PC 101 is more suitable for document printing than for photo printing. In this case, it is possible to display content in the order in which the keyword category and document category with few images are prioritized and the number of appearances of keywords is large. At this time, there is a high probability that the content existing at the highest level is optimal for a user who holds a printer suitable for document printing.

<Example 5>
For example, the following control is possible by using the “number of occurrences of keyword” of the information related to the search keyword in FIG. 10, the “protection level” of the content attribute, and the “printer identifier” of the printing environment. .

  From the printer identifier, it is assumed that the printer 104 connected to the client PC 101 has a scanner engine 308 and a copy function. In this case, it is possible not to display the searched content having a high protection level or to lower the display order. Furthermore, if the contents are displayed in the order of the most appearances of the keyword, the probability that the optimum document for the user holding the printer having the copy function is displayed at the top is increased.

<Example 6>
For example, by using “keyword appearance position” of information related to search keywords, “printable page designation” of content attributes, and “printer identifier” of the printing environment, the following control can be performed. .

  When the position where the keyword appears is included in the printable page specification, it is possible to specify whether the page is a document center or a page containing a lot of photographs or images by a known document / image determination process. . If the page is a page containing many photographs, it is assumed that the connected printer 104 is determined to be a document-oriented device based on the identifier of the printer 104. In this case, an icon 1701 as shown in FIG. 17 is displayed in order to encourage the use of a photo printer.

  FIG. 17 is a diagram illustrating a list display example of search books according to the second embodiment. Parts common to those in FIG. 7 are denoted by the same symbols.

  The icon 1701 is preferably displayed in a shape and color so that it is clearly represented as if it is a photographic printer. As a result, when printing the page, it is possible to instantaneously determine whether or not the held printer is appropriate.

  What has been described above is merely an example. By combining the information of the three categories shown in FIG. 10, it is possible to further control various search result lists, for example, change the display order or add an easy-to-understand icon. Thereby, it is possible to provide a book search print system adapted to users having various preferences.

[Embodiment 3]
As a third embodiment of the present invention, for example, when a search result list is displayed, it may be possible to display both printable content and non-printable content. In such a case, only the printable content is controlled so that the display order is controlled as shown in the second embodiment, and when the list is displayed, it is possible to print as shown in FIG. It is also conceivable to add an icon 1801 so that

  FIG. 18 is a diagram showing a display example of a book search result by the browser of the client PC 101 according to the third embodiment, and the same parts as those in FIG.

  In the figure, a book icon 702 is displayed, and a content attribute 703 is displayed corresponding to each icon. In the example of the figure, it can be seen that books “A”, “C”, and “G” can be printed.

  As a matter of course, in addition to adding such an icon 1801, a predetermined frame is set around the thumbnail image of the target content, or the surrounding color is changed, so that the user can easily see the frame. It is also possible to do.

  According to the above method, when displaying a list of search results, even when both printable content and non-printable content are displayed, a user who desires printing can instantaneously select the desired content. Thereby, a user's convenience can be improved significantly.

[Other Embodiments]
In the above embodiment, the client PC 101 is assumed to be a PC connected to the network 105, but the present invention is not limited to this. The client may be other than a PC, for example, a mobile device such as a mobile phone, or a home appliance such as a digital TV.

  Moreover, although the case where the client and the server are connected to a network such as the Internet has been described in the above embodiment, it goes without saying that the present invention corresponds to the case where both are connected by peer to peer.

  In the present embodiment, the printer 104 has been described as being directly connected to the client PC 101. However, the printer 104 is not limited thereto, and may be a printer connected from the client PC 101 via a network.

  The printer is assumed to be not only a single-function printer having only a print function but also a multi-function processing apparatus (MFP) having a scanner device, a printing device such as a business laser printer, a copying machine, and a facsimile machine. it can.

As described above, according to this embodiment, there are the following effects.
(1) In the online book search system, information related to search keywords, content attributes, and information related to the printing environment can be embedded in printed matter as digital watermark information.
(2) For example, by comprehensively using the three pieces of information shown in FIG. 10, extremely flexible document management can be performed when copying a printed matter. This makes it possible to construct an ideal system for users who want convenience, copyright holders who want to exclude the disadvantages of unauthorized copying, and publishers.
(3) By combining the information of the three categories shown in FIG. 10, it is possible to further perform display control of a list of various search results, for example, processing such as changing the display order or adding easy-to-understand icons. It becomes possible. Thereby, it is possible to provide an online book search print system adapted to users having various preferences.
(4) When displaying a list of search results, even when both printable content and content that is not permitted to be printed are displayed, a user who desires printing selects the desired content instantly. Therefore, convenience for the user can be greatly improved.

(Other embodiments)
Although the embodiments of the present invention have been described in detail above, the present invention may be applied to a system constituted by a plurality of devices or may be applied to an apparatus constituted by one device.

  In the present invention, a software program that implements the functions of the above-described embodiments is supplied directly or remotely to a system or apparatus, and the computer of the system or apparatus reads and executes the supplied program. Can also be achieved. In that case, as long as it has the function of a program, the form does not need to be a program.

  Accordingly, since the functions of the present invention are implemented by computer, the program code installed in the computer also implements the present invention. That is, the claims of the present invention include the computer program itself for realizing the functional processing of the present invention. In this case, the program may be in any form as long as it has a program function, such as an object code, a program executed by an interpreter, or script data supplied to the OS.

  Various recording media for supplying the program can be used. For example, floppy (registered trademark) disk, hard disk, optical disk, magneto-optical disk, MO, CD-ROM, CD-R, CD-RW, magnetic tape, nonvolatile memory card, ROM, DVD (DVD-ROM, DVD- R).

  As another program supply method, the program can be supplied by connecting to a home page on the Internet using a browser of a client computer and downloading the program from the home page to a recording medium such as a hard disk. In this case, the computer program itself of the present invention or a compressed file including an automatic installation function may be downloaded. It can also be realized by dividing the program code constituting the program of the present invention into a plurality of files and downloading each file from a different homepage. That is, a WWW server that allows a plurality of users to download a program file for realizing the functional processing of the present invention on a computer is also included in the claims of the present invention.

  Further, the program of the present invention may be encrypted, stored in a storage medium such as a CD-ROM, and distributed to users. In that case, a user who has cleared a predetermined condition is allowed to download key information to be decrypted from a homepage via the Internet, and using the key information, the encrypted program can be executed on a computer in a format that can be executed. To be installed.

  Further, the present invention can be realized in a form other than the form in which the functions of the above-described embodiments are realized by the computer executing the read program. For example, based on the instructions of the program, an OS or the like running on the computer performs part or all of the actual processing, and the functions of the above-described embodiments can also be realized by the processing.

  Furthermore, the program read from the recording medium may be written in a memory provided in a function expansion board inserted into the computer or a function expansion unit connected to the computer. In this case, thereafter, based on the instructions of the program, the CPU or the like provided in the function expansion board or function expansion unit performs part or all of the actual processing, and the functions of the above-described embodiments are realized by the processing. .

It is a figure showing the outline of the book search system (document search system) concerning the embodiment of the present invention. It is a block diagram which shows an example of the hardware constitutions of the client PC concerning this embodiment. FIG. 3 is a block diagram illustrating an example of a hardware configuration of a printer according to the present embodiment. It is a figure explaining the flow of the data in the book search system concerning this embodiment. It is a flowchart explaining the process in the client PC concerning this embodiment. It is a figure which shows the example of an input screen of the book search site by the browser of client PC concerning this Embodiment 1. FIG. It is a figure which shows the example of a display of the book search result by the browser of the client PC concerning this Embodiment 1. FIG. It is a figure which shows the example of a display by a browser when the user of the client PC concerning Embodiment 1 specifies a desired book. It is a figure which shows an example of the format of the digital watermark information produced | generated by client PC concerning this embodiment. It is a figure which shows the example of a list of the items stored in the data area shown in FIG. 6 is a flowchart showing print data generation processing in step S8 of FIG. It is a figure for demonstrating the embedding method of the digital watermark data based on this embodiment. It is a figure explaining embedding of the electronic watermark which concerns on this Embodiment. It is a flowchart explaining a process when the copy instruction | indication of the printed matter printed by the process which concerns on this embodiment is input. It is a figure which shows the example of an input screen of the book search site by the browser of client PC concerning Embodiment 2 of this invention. It is a figure which shows the example of a display of the book search result by the browser of client PC which concerns on Embodiment 2 of this invention. It is a figure which shows the list display example of the search book which concerns on this Embodiment 2. FIG. It is a figure which shows the example of a display of the book search result by the browser of client PC concerning this Embodiment 3. FIG.

Claims (21)

A search system for transmitting a search request from a client to a server and transmitting a search result in the server to the client,
The server
Search for content corresponding to a search request including a search keyword from the client, and send to the client together with information about the search keyword and attribute information of the searched content,
The client
A printing environment acquisition unit that acquires a printing environment in a printing unit that prints the searched content ;
Display control means for controlling display of the searched content according to the information on the search keyword, the attribute information, and the printing environment;
I have a,
The display control unit controls display of the searched content according to at least the number of appearances of the search keyword in the printable region when a printable region is designated for the content. A search system characterized by the above.   The search system according to claim 1, wherein the display control unit displays the content that is permitted to be printed by the printing unit and the content that is not so distinguishable.   The search system according to claim 1, wherein the client further includes an instruction unit that instructs to search only content that is permitted to be printed by the printing unit. The client
Print instruction means for instructing printing of content permitted to be printed by the printing means;
Generating means for generating electronic watermark information based on the search result, the attribute information, and the printing environment in response to a print instruction by the print instruction means;
Print information generation means for generating print information in which the digital watermark information generated by the generation means is embedded in the content;
The search system according to claim 1, wherein the print information is output to the printing unit to be printed.   The information on the search keyword includes any one of the search keyword, the number of times the search keyword appears for each content, and a position where the search keyword appears for each content. 5. The search system according to any one of 1 to 4.   The attribute information includes, for each searched content, the content name, author, publisher, identification code, price, right / no rights, printable page, copyable page, number of times printed, category, protection level The search system according to any one of claims 1 to 5, wherein any one of the above is included.   7. The printing environment according to claim 1, wherein the printing environment includes any one of information on a user who performs printing, printing date and time, an identifier of the printing unit, an identifier of a printing medium, and the number of pages in a book. The search system described in the section. An information processing apparatus that transmits a search request to a server and receives and displays a search result in the server,
Means for issuing a search request including a search keyword to a server;
Receiving means for receiving a search result of content transmitted from the server in response to the search request;
A printing environment acquisition unit that acquires a printing environment in a printing unit that prints the searched content ;
Display control means for controlling display of the searched content according to the information related to the search keyword received from the server, the attribute information of the searched content , and the printing environment;
I have a,
The display control unit controls display of the searched content according to at least the number of appearances of the search keyword in the printable region when a printable region is designated for the content. An information processing apparatus characterized by the above.   The information processing apparatus according to claim 8, wherein the display control unit displays the content permitted to be printed by the printing unit and the content that is not so identifiable.   The information processing apparatus according to claim 8, further comprising an instruction unit that instructs to search only content that is permitted to be printed by the printing unit. Print instruction means for instructing printing of content permitted to be printed by the printing means;
Generating means for generating electronic watermark information based on the search result, the attribute information, and the printing environment in response to a print instruction by the print instruction means;
Print information generation means for generating print information in which the digital watermark information generated by the generation means is embedded in the content;
The information processing apparatus according to claim 8, wherein the print information is output to the printing unit to be printed.   The information on the search keyword includes any one of the search keyword, the number of times the search keyword appears for each content, and a position where the search keyword appears for each content. The information processing apparatus according to any one of 8 to 11.   The attribute information includes, for each searched content, the content name, author, publisher, identification code, price, right / no rights, printable page, copyable page, number of times printed, category, protection level The information processing apparatus according to claim 8, wherein the information processing apparatus includes any one of the following.   The print environment includes any one of information on a user who executes printing, a print date and time, an identifier of the printing unit, an identifier of a print medium, and the number of pages in a book. The information processing apparatus according to item.     The information processing apparatus according to claim 8, wherein the information related to the search keyword includes information indicating an appearance position or the number of appearances of the search keyword in the content. The attribute information includes information indicating the number of times the content is printed,
16. The information processing apparatus according to claim 8, wherein the display control unit further controls display of the searched content according to the number of times of printing of the content.   The display control means controls display of the searched content according to an evaluation value calculated using the number of appearances of the search keyword in the content and the number of times of printing of the content. 16. The information processing apparatus according to 16.   The information processing apparatus according to claim 8, wherein the attribute information includes information that can specify the printable area. The printing environment includes identification information for identifying the printing means;
The information processing apparatus according to claim 8, wherein the display control unit further controls display of the searched content according to the identification information. A determination unit for determining whether or not the printing unit specified by the identification information is suitable for printing the content in the printable area;
The information processing apparatus according to claim 19, wherein the display control unit further controls display of the searched content according to a determination result by the determination unit. A method for controlling an information processing apparatus that transmits a search request to a server and receives and displays a search result in the server,
Issuing a search request including a search keyword to a server;
Receiving a search result of content transmitted from the server in response to the search request;
A printing environment acquisition step of acquiring a printing environment in a printing means for printing the searched content ;
A display control step for controlling display of the searched content according to the information related to the search keyword received from the server, the attribute information of the searched content , and the printing environment ,
In the display control step, when a printable area is designated for the content, display of the searched content is controlled according to the number of appearances of the search keyword in the printable area. > A method for controlling an information processing apparatus.

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