KR102627180B1 - A drawing display system for patent documents using margins - Google Patents

Abstract

A patent document that recognizes drawing symbols in the drawings of a patent document, extracts descriptions of the drawing symbols from the text content of the patent document, displays them on the screen, and places the description of each drawing symbol in the drawing margin, utilizing space. relates to a drawing display system, comprising: a drawing acquisition unit that acquires drawings of a patent document and displays each drawing (hereinafter referred to as the relevant drawing) on a screen; a reference number detection unit that detects reference signs and their positions in the drawing; a code description extraction unit that extracts a code description for the drawing symbol by referring to the detailed description of the patent document; A margin detection unit that detects a blank area in a drawing; And, a configuration including a sign description arrangement unit for arranging the sign description in the blank area is provided.
According to the above system, by placing the description of the drawing symbols in the blank space on the screen of the drawing, the description of the drawing symbols does not cover the drawing image, so both the drawing and the description can be accurately understood at a glance.

Description

{ A drawing display system for patent documents using margins }

The present invention recognizes drawing symbols in drawings of patent documents, extracts descriptions of drawing symbols from the text content of the patent document, displays them on the screen, and utilizes the margins to place descriptions of each drawing symbol in the margins of the drawing. This relates to a drawing display system for a patent document.

Generally, a patent document includes a text portion consisting of a summary, claims, technical field, background technology, problem to be solved, means of solving the problem, effect of the invention, brief description of the drawings, specific details for carrying out the invention, etc. It consists of a drawing part in the form of an image consisting of a picture that visually explains the content and operation of the patent, and reference signs that indicate specific parts through leader lines in the picture.

In patent drawings, pictures are very important in understanding the patent content because they supplement the text explaining the patent content in detail and allow third parties to intuitively and graphically quickly understand the composition of the invention or design.

However, in the drawings of existing patent documents, only image-type drawings to visually explain the contents of the patent and reference marks indicating specific parts in the drawings are indicated, and the names indicated by the reference marks or brief descriptions of the drawings are not directly provided. Since it is not indicated in the drawing, it is inconvenient to understand and understand the drawing by having to identify the name and brief description of the corresponding symbol for the drawing within the text in the patent document, especially when there are a large number of drawings in the patent document or The greater the number of reference signs within, the more time and effort is required to understand the contents of the patent drawing.

In other words, in order for a user to understand the invention through a patent document, he or she must read the detailed description of the invention included in the specification and understand the drawings. However, because only numeric reference symbols exist in the drawings, the user cannot understand the invention through the drawings alone. There are bound to be limits.

Additionally, when searching through a desired technology keyword on a site that can search for patent documents, services are provided that allow you to search for an invention through the keyword of the invention and view drawings of the searched patent document. However, there is the difficulty of having to review the detailed description of the invention, such as the description of the symbols, to determine which part of the drawing in the searched patent document corresponds to the keyword I am looking for.

Therefore, in order to solve this problem, techniques for extracting descriptions of reference symbols in drawings [Patent Document 1] or techniques for displaying descriptions of reference symbols in drawings have been proposed [Patent Documents 2, 3]. However, the above prior arts display the drawing description at the position where the reference numeral is recognized on the drawing.

Figure 1 illustrates a drawing in which drawing descriptions are indicated at the positions of reference numerals, as in the prior arts. However, as shown in FIG. 1, in the prior art, the description of the drawing symbols is displayed on the image of the drawing, so there is a problem in that the text of the drawing description partially covers the drawing image and does not make it visible.

Korean Patent Publication No. 10-2020-0013130 (published on February 6, 2020) Korean Patent Publication No. 10-2016-0125931 (published on November 1, 2016) Korean Patent Publication No. 10-2018-0107707 (published on October 2, 2018)

The purpose of the present invention is to solve the above-described problems, by recognizing drawing symbols in drawings of patent documents, extracting descriptions of drawing symbols from the text content of the patent document and displaying them on the screen, but leaving the margins of the drawings. The aim is to provide a drawing display system for patent documents using blank spaces, which places explanations of each drawing symbol in the drawing symbol.

In addition, the purpose of the present invention is to provide a drawing display system for a patent document using a blank space, where the drawing symbol description is placed in the drawing blank space and the corresponding symbol description is placed in the position and direction closest to the position of the drawing symbol.

In addition, the purpose of the present invention is to calculate the size of the blank space excluding the image object portion of the drawing on the screen on which the drawing will be displayed, calculate the total number of characters in the description of the drawing symbols, and set the size of the characters or font of the description, The goal is to provide a drawing display system for patent documents using blank space.

In order to achieve the above object, the present invention relates to a system for displaying drawings of patent documents using blank spaces, which includes a drawing acquisition unit that acquires drawings of the patent document and displays each drawing (hereinafter referred to as the drawing) on a screen; a reference number detection unit that detects reference signs and their positions in the drawing; a code description extraction unit that extracts a code description for the drawing symbol by referring to the detailed description of the patent document; A margin detection unit that detects a blank area in a drawing; And, it is characterized in that it includes a sign description arrangement unit for arranging the sign description in the blank area.

In addition, the present invention relates to a system for displaying drawings of patent documents using blank spaces, wherein the drawing acquisition unit detects the direction of rotation in the drawing, returns the drawing to its original orientation when the drawing is rotated, and changes the rotation direction of the drawing to the drawing. It is characterized in that it is determined by the rotation direction of the reference numeral.

In addition, the present invention is a system for displaying drawings of patent documents using blank spaces, wherein the drawing detection unit detects the location of drawing symbols in the drawing using a deep learning method, and places a bounding box at the position of the detected drawing symbols. It is characterized by detecting drawing symbols by recognizing letters or numbers by interpreting the bounding box using the OCR (Optical Character Recognition) function.

In addition, in the present invention, in a system for displaying drawings of patent documents using blank space, the code description extraction unit detects drawing symbols within the detailed description of the patent document, and uses a character string located immediately before the detected drawing symbols to describe the drawings. However, by parsing sentences containing drawing symbols, only strings used as subjects or objects are extracted from the immediately preceding text. If there are multiple sentences containing drawing symbols, the string immediately preceding the drawing symbol is extracted from all of the multiple sentences. It is characterized by extracting and detecting the part of the character string that overlaps most frequently among the extracted character strings with a description of the corresponding drawing symbol.

In addition, the present invention provides a drawing display system for a patent document utilizing margins, wherein the margin detection unit detects a margin area in the drawing in which the boundary of the area consists of only the horizontal and vertical sides, and the length and area of the vertical side of the margin area. It is characterized by detecting that the length of each width is more than a predetermined length.

In addition, the present invention is a system for displaying drawings of patent documents using blank spaces, wherein the length of the vertical side is set to be larger than the character height, and the width of the blank area is set to the width of the minimum number of characters determined in advance. Do it as

In addition, the present invention is a system for displaying drawings of patent documents using margins, wherein the margin detection unit is capable of adjusting the gap between the object bounding box of the drawing and the canvas box of the entire area on the screen where the drawing is displayed. Do it as

In addition, in the present invention, in a system for displaying drawings of patent documents utilizing blank space, the symbol description arrangement unit sets an area (hereinafter referred to as description area) to place the symbol description of each drawing symbol, and each description area is divided into other description areas. It is placed within the margin area so as not to overlap, and the size of the description area is determined by the size and number of characters in the corresponding sign description, and the character size is determined by the character height and width.

In addition, the present invention relates to a system for displaying drawings of patent documents using blank spaces, wherein the sign description arrangement unit sets a plurality of description areas for one drawing sign according to the number of lines, and explains the sign within the corresponding number of lines. When arranging, the description area to be placed is set to a description area of the corresponding number of lines to minimize the width of the description area.

In addition, in the present invention, in the system for displaying drawings of patent documents using blank space, if there are at least two description areas for one drawing sign, the symbol description arrangement unit sets the priority of each description area, and sets the priority of each description area. The priority is set according to the length of the sign description, or the priority is set according to the horizontal and vertical ratio of the description area.

In addition, in the present invention, in a system for displaying drawings of patent documents using blank spaces, the code description arrangement unit first arranges the description area of the corresponding reference numeral in the adjacent blank space at the position of each reference symbol, and then provides a description in the adjacent blank space. For drawing symbols whose areas cannot be placed, the description area of the corresponding drawing symbols is placed in the remaining blank area.

In addition, in the present invention, in a system for displaying drawings of patent documents using blank spaces, the code description arrangement unit corresponds to the drawing code at the blank position closest to the position of the drawing symbol for drawing symbols for which the description area is not placed in the adjacent blank space. It is characterized by arranging the description area of the sign.

In addition, in the present invention, in a system for displaying drawings of patent documents using blank spaces, when the description area is placed in a non-adjacent blank space, the code description arrangement unit displays the description area and the corresponding drawing symbols by connecting them with a connection line. It is characterized by

In addition, the present invention relates to a system for displaying drawings of patent documents using blank spaces. The system uses the size of the blank space and the amount of characters in the symbol description of all drawing symbols to determine the size of the canvas or the font size of the symbol description. It is characterized in that it further includes a size control unit that adjusts.

In addition, the present invention relates to a system for displaying drawings of patent documents using margins, wherein the size adjustment unit calculates the ratio of the size of the entire description area by a predetermined standard size to the size of the entire margin area, and calculates the ratio of the size of the entire description area by a predetermined standard size to the size of the entire margin area. It is determined whether it is larger than the maximum ratio, and if it is larger than the maximum ratio, the size of the canvas is adjusted to be large or the font size of the sign description is adjusted to be small, so that the ratio of the entire description area is set to be less than the maximum ratio.

In addition, in the present invention, in a drawing display system of a patent document utilizing margins, the size adjuster detects the margin area again through the margin detection unit after adjusting the size, and selects the detected margin area to determine the total margin area. It is characterized by calculating and comparing the size.

As described above, according to the drawing display system of a patent document utilizing blank spaces according to the present invention, by placing descriptions of drawing symbols in the blank space on the screen of the drawing, the drawings and descriptions do not cover the drawing images. The effect of being able to accurately understand everything at a glance is achieved.

In addition, according to the drawing display system of a patent document using a blank space according to the present invention, the corresponding symbol description is placed at the position and direction closest to the position of the drawing symbol, thereby intuitively facilitating the correspondence between the drawing symbol and the symbol description. A clearly understandable effect is achieved.

Figure 1 is an example diagram showing an explanatory display method of reference symbols on a drawing of a patent document according to the prior art.
Figure 2 is a configuration diagram of the entire system for implementing the present invention.
Figure 3 is a block diagram of the configuration of a drawing display system for a patent document using blank spaces according to an embodiment of the present invention.
Figure 4 is an exemplary diagram of a drawing according to an embodiment of the present invention, (a) an original drawing, and (b) an exemplary diagram of a rotated and pre-processed drawing.
Figure 5 is an example diagram of detecting reference symbols in a drawing according to an embodiment of the present invention.
Figure 6 is an example table of reference symbols and their descriptions detected in a detailed description according to an embodiment of the present invention.
Figure 7 is an example of detecting a blank area of a drawing according to an embodiment of the present invention.
Figure 8 is an example diagram of the blank area of the drawing after adjusting the gap between the entire drawing area and the object bounding area according to an embodiment of the present invention.
9 is an exemplary diagram of a description area of reference numerals according to an embodiment of the present invention.
Figure 10 is an exemplary diagram illustrating symbols placed in the blank space adjacent to drawing symbols according to an embodiment of the present invention.
FIG. 11 is an exemplary diagram illustrating symbols placed in non-adjacent margins of drawing symbols according to an embodiment of the present invention.

Hereinafter, specific details for implementing the present invention will be described with reference to the drawings.

In addition, in explaining the present invention, like parts are given the same reference numerals, and repeated description thereof is omitted.

First, the configuration of the entire system for implementing the present invention will be described with reference to FIG. 2.

As shown in FIG. 2, an example of an overall system for implementing the present invention consists of a user terminal 10 and a drawing display system 30 and are connected to each other through a network 80. In addition, a database 40 may be further provided to store necessary data such as patent documents. That is, the drawing display system 30 of a patent document according to the present invention can be implemented as a server system or web application on a network.

Additionally, as another example, the system 30 for displaying drawings of patent documents according to the present invention may be linked with a patent browsing server 50 for viewing patent documents, or may be implemented as a system with an auxiliary function. That is, the patent viewing server 50 provides a main interface with the user terminal 10 and a main function for viewing patent documents, and additionally provides a drawing display function using blank space in relation to patent drawings. At this time, additional drawing display functions may be implemented with the drawing display system 30. In addition, the drawing display system 30 may be implemented as a system with an independent function and linked with the patent browsing server 50, or may be implemented as a subsidiary system of the patent browsing server 50.

To be more specific, the patent browsing server 50 is a server that provides a patent document browsing service, holds patent documents, and provides an interface for searching and viewing the owned patent documents.

Patent document refers to a published patent publication or registered patent publication. Patent documents may include not only patents but also utility models. Since the items of a utility model are almost the same as the patent publication except for the content of the rights, when referring to a patent document hereinafter, the utility model publication will also be included. Meanwhile, patent documents include both domestic and foreign patent publications. In other words, all patent publications issued by each country's patent office or WIPO may be applicable.

In addition, patent documents are stored divided into detailed items such as bibliographic information, claims, description of invention, and drawings. In addition, patent documents are managed separately as data for each detailed item, so they can be searched or referenced by that item.

In particular, in patent documents, drawings are stored and managed as images (hereinafter referred to as drawing images) for each degree, and other bibliographic information, description of invention, and claims are stored and managed as text. Therefore, text search services are provided for items such as description of invention and claims. In addition, bibliographic information consists of patent number, IPC classification, applicant, inventor, application date, etc., and searches are provided for each of these items.

Additionally, the patent viewing server 50 provides a search service for viewing patent documents. In other words, it provides various search services such as search by patent number, keyword, and detailed items, so that users can search for the patent document they want.

Additionally, the patent browsing server 50 provides a browsing service that allows users to view the contents of searched patent documents. At this time, the patent browsing server 50 may provide a browsing service such as browsing the full text of the patent document or browsing each detailed item of the patent document.

In particular, the patent viewing server 50 provides a service for viewing drawings of patent documents and provides an interface for this. At this time, the patent viewing server 50 provides a service for processing and displaying drawings in conjunction with the drawing display system 30. In particular, on the screen displaying the drawings, explanations of drawing symbols are added and displayed.

Meanwhile, preferably, the patent browsing server 50 is provided as a web service on the web. Therefore, the user accesses the patent browsing server 50 through the user terminal 10 and uses the patent browsing service.

In addition, the patent browsing server 50 can be implemented as a server-client system in conjunction with a client (not shown) installed on the user terminal 10 to provide a patent browsing service. That is, a dedicated patent browsing client (or dedicated application) is installed on the user terminal 10, and the patent browsing service can be used by linking with the patent browsing server 50 through the client. In particular, when the user terminal 10 is a mobile terminal, the client may be a mobile application (app), etc.

Next, the user terminal 10 is a computing terminal used by the user and is a typical computing terminal such as a PC, laptop, netbook, PDA, smart phone, or mobile.

The user accesses the patent browsing server 50 through the user terminal 10 and uses services such as patent search and patent document browsing. Since the user uses services such as viewing patent documents through the user terminal 10, hereinafter, any task performed by the user will be interpreted as being performed by the user terminal 10.

Also, preferably, a web browser (not shown) or a dedicated client is installed in the user terminal 10, and these client program systems connect to the patent browsing server 50 and use the patent browsing service.

In addition, commands for patent viewing entered by the user are input at the user terminal 10, these commands are transmitted to the patent browsing server 50, and the results returned from the patent browsing server 50 are sent to the user terminal 10. is displayed on the screen. However, the screen in question is created by the patent browsing server 50 or is a screen based on data provided by the patent browsing server 50. Below, for convenience, the results will be displayed on the screen.

Next, the drawing display system 30 is implemented as a server system or web application on a network, linked with the patent viewing server 50, or implemented as a system with auxiliary functions.

In particular, the drawing display system 30 processes drawings of patent documents and displays them on the screen. That is, the drawing display system 30 recognizes drawing symbols in the drawings of the patent document, extracts descriptions of the drawing symbols from the contents of the patent document, and places the description of each drawing symbol in the margin of the drawing.

Next, the database 40 is divided into a viewing document DB 41 that stores the viewed patent documents, and a drawing information DB 42 that stores the drawing symbols, symbol positions, symbol descriptions, etc. of each drawing of the patent document. It comes true. However, the configuration of the database 40 is only a preferred embodiment, and when developing a specific device, it can be configured into a different structure according to database construction theory, taking into account ease of access and search and efficiency.

Next, the configuration of the drawing display system 30 according to an embodiment of the present invention will be described with reference to FIG. 3.

As shown in FIG. 3, the drawing display system 30 according to an embodiment of the present invention includes a drawing acquisition unit 31 that acquires a drawing of a patent document, a drawing detection unit 32 that detects drawing symbols in the drawing, It consists of a sign description extraction unit 33 that extracts a sign description for a drawing sign, a margin detection unit 34 that detects a blank space in a drawing, and a sign description arrangement unit 35 that places a sign description in the drawing margin. Additionally, it may be configured to further include a size control unit 36 that adjusts the font size of the sign description, or a description arrangement editing unit 37 that edits the position of the sign description.

First, the drawing acquisition unit 31 obtains a drawing of the viewed patent document and displays it on the screen.

As previously explained, patent documents refer to published patent publications or registered patent publications, and include not only patents but also utility models. In addition, both domestic and foreign patent publications are eligible.

In particular, patent documents are divided into detailed items such as bibliographic information, description of the invention, claims, and drawings, and the bibliographic information consists of patent number, IPC classification, applicant, inventor, application date, etc.

Additionally, in a patent document, a drawing consists of one or more figures (pictures). Here, the drawing refers to the entire diagram, and each diagram refers to an individual picture. However, for convenience of explanation, hereinafter, drawings and diagrams are used interchangeably. In other words, individual diagrams are used interchangeably as drawings.

Meanwhile, the drawing acquired by the drawing acquisition unit 31 is for one patent document. That is, for one patent document previously searched by the patent browsing server 50, the drawings of the corresponding patent document are viewed. Therefore, in the following, drawing symbols, etc. are also extracted from the corresponding patent document.

Additionally, the drawing acquisition unit 31 displays one drawing (or drawings) among the drawings of the corresponding patent document on the screen. In particular, according to the user's selection, a drawing selected from among a plurality of drawings is displayed on the screen.

Additionally, multiple drawings (or views) are each assigned a figure number in the patent document. For example, a figure number is assigned, such as “Figure 1 (Fig. 1).”

Additionally, the drawing acquisition unit 31 detects the rotation direction of the drawing in each drawing, and returns the drawing to its original orientation when the drawing is rotated. At this time, the rotation direction of the drawing is determined by the rotation direction of the reference numeral. In the example of FIG. 4A, if the reference numeral is rotated 90 degrees to the left, the corresponding drawing is rotated 90 degrees to the right in the opposite direction, returning it to its original orientation as shown in FIG. 4A.

Meanwhile, preferably, the direction of the reference signs can be determined by detecting only 2-3 predetermined reference signs rather than detecting all reference signs on the drawing.

In addition, according to predetermined rules, the drawing acquisition unit 31 leaves only the objects of each drawing and their drawing symbols and deletes and excludes the rest (objects not related to the drawing objects). In the example of Figure 3, objects that are not directly related to the drawing object, such as "FIG.1", are deleted. Objects that are not related to drawing objects are determined in advance by rules.

That is, the drawing acquisition unit 31 acquires a drawing and performs preprocessing tasks such as rotating the drawing or deleting unnecessary objects.

At this time, the drawing object refers to the object of the technical configuration to be expressed on the drawing. A drawing symbol is displayed for each component of the drawing object, or a drawing symbol and each component of the drawing object are connected by a connecting line. Therefore, each drawing consists of drawing objects, drawing symbols, and connection lines.

Next, the reference number detection unit 32 detects reference signs and their positions in the drawing. That is, a reference number is detected in the drawing, and the detected position is estimated as the location of the corresponding reference number.

Preferably, the reference numeral detection unit 32 detects the location of the reference numeral in the drawing based on a neural network method such as deep learning. More preferably, the RetinaNet model is used as a deep learning method.

In other words, unlike object recognition technology for general image data processing, the drawing symbol detection unit 32 uses object recognition technology using the RetinaNet model, which is specialized for drawings of patent specifications consisting of only black and white shapes and numbers, to identify drawings within the drawing. The position of the symbol can be detected and the coordinate information of the drawing symbol can be retrieved.

Additionally, the reference detecting unit 32 creates a bounding box at the position of the detected reference number. The bounding box generated by the reference number detection unit 32 may have a rectangular border shape formed around the detected reference number. However, the bounding box may not be visually exposed. For example, the bounding box can be configured with a transparent color.

Figure 5 shows that reference symbols are detected in a drawing and a bounding box is displayed on the detected symbols.

Additionally, preferably, the drawing detection unit 32 is equipped with an OCR (Optical Character Recognition) function specialized for drawings in the patent specification, and uses this to recognize and extract drawing marks located at corresponding coordinates as drawing marks in text format. . That is, the drawing detection unit 32 recognizes numbers or letters using OCR within the bounding box created for the drawing and detects the drawing in text format.

Additionally, as another embodiment, the drawing detection unit 32 may extract drawing symbols in text format from drawing symbols whose positions have been detected based on a deep learning algorithm or a machine learning algorithm. As an example, the drawing detection unit 32 may use an OCR function such as ASTER to extract drawing marks in text format from drawing marks.

ASTER is an end-to-end neural network model consisting of a rectification network and a recognition network, and recognizes and extracts text or numbers within an image or bounding box. The drawing detector 32 learns ASTER in advance and inputs a bounding box to extract drawing marks in text format.

In the previous example of FIG. 5, reference numerals are extracted as 2, 4, 6, 8, 10, 12, 14, ..., etc.

Next, the sign description extraction unit 33 extracts the sign description for the drawing sign.

That is, the sign description extraction unit 33 extracts a description of the reference sign (code description) from the description of the invention in the patent document for the extracted reference sign.

Specifically, a drawing symbol (or a drawing symbol in text form) is detected within the description of the invention in the patent document, and the text or character string located immediately before the detected drawing symbol is extracted as a symbol description.

In particular, sentences containing drawing symbols are parsed, and only character strings used as subjects or objects are extracted from the immediately preceding text. If there are multiple sentences containing a drawing symbol, the character string immediately preceding the corresponding drawing symbol is extracted from all of the sentences, and the part of the character string that overlaps most frequently among the extracted character strings is set as the description of the drawing symbol. For example, "red patch 10" and "patch 10" are detected. In this case, if the number of duplicates of "patch" is the highest, the symbol description of reference numeral "10" is set to "patch".

Figure 6 shows the result of mapping symbol descriptions to reference symbols.

Next, the margin detection unit 34 detects the margin in the drawing.

Specifically, the margin detection unit 34 detects a blank area in a drawing image (image of each degree), and detects a blank area where the boundary of the area consists of only the horizontal and vertical sides.

Preferably, the length of the vertical side is set to be longer than a predetermined minimum length. In particular, the minimum length of the vertical side is set to the character height. Additionally, the width of the internal area is set to be longer than a predetermined minimum length. At this time, the minimum length of the area width is set to the width of the minimum number of characters determined in advance.

For example, if the width of the area is set to a width of at least 4 characters, it is long enough to write at least 4 characters. In other words, the length of the vertical side is the height of the letters, so it becomes the space where one line of letters can be written. Text spacing refers to the space between lines, and font height is the height of the corresponding letters. However, character height refers to the height of the space occupied by the corresponding character, so it is considered the same as line spacing.

Also, preferably, the margin detection unit 34 detects a candidate margin area using color in the drawing. In other words, the area where the color is white (or background color) is detected as a blank area. As before, an area consisting of a vertical side and a horizontal side is detected, but an area where the width of the inner area and the length of the vertical side is greater than the minimum length is detected.

Figure 7 illustrates the blank area detected within each drawing (each degree) image. The gray area in the drawing is a blank area. As shown in FIG. 7, a blank area can be detected even within an object in a drawing. In other words, when the background color area inside an object reaches a certain size, it is detected as a blank area.

Meanwhile, the gap between the bounding box of the drawing object and the canvas box of the entire area can be adjusted by the size adjuster 36. At this time, the size of the drawing object is determined in advance. Therefore, the size of the canvas can change, such as increasing or decreasing. In other words, the size of the canvas box is adjusted.

Here, the bounding box of the object refers to the minimum rectangle containing the object, and the canvas (or canvas box) refers to the area on the screen where the drawing is displayed.

In the example of Figure 7, A represents the bounding box of the object and B represents the canvas.

If the gap between the bounding box and the canvas box is small, the minimum length condition of the margin area may not be satisfied and may be excluded from the margin area. For example, as shown in parts C and D of FIG. 8, when the gap on the left or right side is reduced, the width and length of the blank area are smaller than the minimum standard length, so it is not detected as a blank area.

Next, the sign description placement unit 35 places the sign description in the drawing margin.

That is, the symbol description arrangement unit 35 sets an area (hereinafter referred to as a description area) where the symbol description of each drawing symbol is to be placed, and arranges each description area in a blank area so that it does not overlap with other description areas.

At this time, the size of the description area is determined by the size and number of characters in the sign description. Font size consists of the height and width of the text. Font size refers to the space occupied by one letter. In other words, it is distinct from letter size and font size.

Additionally, the sign description arrangement unit 35 sets a plurality of description areas for one drawing sign according to the number of lines. At this time, the number of lines is limited to less than the predetermined maximum number of lines. Preferably, the maximum number of lines (or maximum number of lines) is set to 3. Line breaks are performed on a word-by-word basis. Therefore, the number of lines may be limited depending on the number of words in the sign description. For example, if the number of words in the sign description is 1, only a one-line description area is set, and if the number of words is 2, a 1-line description area and a 2-line description area are set.

Additionally, in the case of two or more lines, the description area to be placed to minimize the width of the description area when arranging the sign description within the corresponding number of lines is set to the description area for the corresponding number of lines.

Figure 9 illustrates multiple description areas according to the number of lines of symbol description. In the example of FIG. 9, description area 1 represents a case where the number of lines is 1, and description areas 2 and 3 represent cases where the number of lines is 2 and 3, respectively.

Additionally, when multiple description areas are set for one reference sign, the sign description arrangement unit 35 selects only one of the multiple description areas and places it in the blank area.

In particular, if there are at least two description areas for one reference sign, the sign description arrangement unit 35 sets the priority of each description area according to the length (or standard length) of the sign description. The width of the description area is smaller than the predetermined standard width and the description area with the minimum number of lines is set as the highest priority. As an example, if the symbol description is less than the standard length, the one-line description area is set to the highest priority. If the standard length is 10 and the symbol description length is 15 or 25, the 2-line and 3-line description areas are set to the highest priority, respectively.

Or, as another embodiment, the priority of each description area is set according to the ratio of the width and height of the description area. As an example, the width to height ratio is set to 5:1, and the closer it is to this ratio, the higher the priority is set.

The sign description arrangement unit 35 selects the highest priority description area for each drawing symbol and places the description area within the blank area. If the highest priority description area cannot be placed, one of the remaining description areas is placed within the blank area. Place it.

In addition, the sign description arrangement unit 35 first places the description area of the corresponding sign in the adjacent space at the position of each reference sign, and then places the description area of the reference sign that was not placed in the adjacent space. Here, the adjacent margin position (or adjacent margin) refers to the position adjacent to the top, bottom, left, and right at the position of the corresponding reference number (or the bounding box of the reference number).

That is, for each reference symbol, if the symbol description arrangement unit 35 can place the description area of the reference symbol in the adjacent margin space (space within the margin area) of each reference symbol, the description area of the reference symbol is placed first. Place it.

FIG. 10 illustrates arranging a description area in a blank space adjacent to each reference number. In the example of FIG. 10, the drawing description can be placed in adjacent positions only to reference numerals “2”, “10”, “12”, “14”, “16”, and “18”. At this time, there is a blank space adjacent to the reference numeral "4", but the space is not large enough to write the symbol description "sidewall section" of the reference numeral "4" in the blank space.

In addition, after arranging the symbol description arrangement unit 35 in an adjacent blank space, for each drawing symbol that is not arranged, the description area for the symbol is placed in the margin (position of the blank space) closest to the position of the symbol. .

FIG. 11 shows an example of arranging a description area in the nearest margin for each reference symbol that is not located in an adjacent margin. In the example of FIG. 11, the reference numerals “4”, “6”, “8”, “20”, “22”, “24”, and “26” are placed at the nearest positions.

Additionally, when arranging a description area at a non-adjacent location, the symbol description arrangement unit 35 displays a connection line between the description area and the corresponding reference symbol, or adds the reference symbol to the symbol description. When adding a reference number to the description of a reference number, the size of the description area changes as the reference number is added. Additionally, add both connecting lines and drawing symbols, or optionally add only one.

Figure 12 shows a form in which descriptions of symbols placed in non-adjacent positions are connected to corresponding reference symbols with connection lines.

Next, the size adjustment unit 36 adjusts the size of the canvas (or canvas box) or the font size of the symbol description using the size of the blank space and the amount of characters in the symbol description of all drawing symbols. In particular, the size of the canvas or the font size of the sign description is adjusted so that the ratio of the size of the entire description area of the sign description to the size of the entire blank space is smaller than a predetermined maximum ratio.

Specifically, the size adjustment unit 36 calculates the size of the blank space. Preferably, it is calculated in pixel units.

Additionally, the size adjustment unit 36 calculates the size of the entire description area of the sign description. At this time, the total description area of the symbol description is calculated by calculating the total number of characters in the symbol description of the drawing symbol to be written in the corresponding drawing, and multiplying the number of characters by the character size to calculate the size of the entire description area. At this time, the number of characters includes spaces for spacing.

Font size refers to the size of the area where one letter is displayed. Font size is determined by the width and height of the text. Font size is determined by formatting variables such as font size, width, character spacing, and line spacing.

Jangpyeong refers to the percentage of width (horizontal) to the vertical length of a letter, and letter spacing refers to the space between each letter. Line spacing refers to the space between the first and second lines when letters are written in two lines.

Additionally, font size is affected by the size of the font (or fonts). However, letter size does not mean font size. As explained previously, font size refers to the size of the area where one character is displayed.

Therefore, the size control unit 36 adjusts the font size by changing formatting variables such as font size, length, letter spacing, and line spacing. As an example, in order to reduce the font size, all or part of the font size, width, character spacing, line spacing, etc. may be reduced.

The process of adjusting font size is explained in detail.

Meanwhile, preferably, the size adjustment unit 36 sets the font size of the sign description to a predetermined standard size.

First, the size adjustment unit 36 calculates the ratio of the size of the entire description area by the standard size to the size of the entire margin and determines whether it is larger than the maximum ratio. If it is larger than the maximum ratio, adjust the font size small so that the ratio of the entire description area is below the maximum ratio. At this time, the size of the letters is adjusted by adjusting the variables of the font size, letter spacing, width, and line spacing.

Meanwhile, preferably, the size adjustment unit 36 adjusts the character size and then detects the margin again through the margin detection unit 34. Since the font size has changed, the margin area may also change. Accordingly, the size adjustment unit 36 recalculates the ratio of the size of the entire description area to the total size of the detected blank area.

Additionally, the size control unit 36 sets the minimum font size in advance. And even if the minimum font size is set, if the ratio of the entire description area is larger than the maximum ratio, the size of the canvas is greatly adjusted to expand the margin area by widening the gap between the canvas box and the bounding box of the drawing object.

Next, the process of adjusting the margin area will be explained in detail.

By adjusting the size of the canvas box, the gap between the canvas box and the bounding box of the drawing object is adjusted, thereby expanding or reducing the margin area.

Preferably, the size adjustment unit 36 sets a standard interval in advance. The standard gap can be divided into a top and bottom standard gap and a left and right standard gap.

The size control unit 36 adjusts the size of the canvas so that the distance between the canvas box and the bounding box of the object is a standard distance.

Then, the size adjustment unit 36 calculates the ratio of the size of the entire description area to the size of the entire margin and determines whether it is greater than the maximum ratio. If it is larger than the maximum ratio, resize the canvas and place it, then recalculate the ratio to determine whether it is larger than the maximum ratio.

At this time, the size adjustment unit 36 adjusts the size of the canvas and then detects the margin area again through the margin detection unit 34. Since the gap between the canvas box and the object's bounding box has changed, the margin area may also change. Therefore, the size adjustment unit 36 recalculates the ratio of the size of the entire description area to the total size of the detected blank area.

Then, the size adjustment unit 36 repeats the operation of comparing the ratio of the size of the entire description area to the size of the entire margin with the maximum ratio. By repeating the above process, the size of the drawing object is adjusted so that the ratio of the size of the entire description area to the size of the entire margin is larger than the maximum ratio.

Meanwhile, the size adjuster 36 may position drawing objects in the center of the canvas, but may also position them biased toward one side (up, down, left, and right sides). For example, a drawing object can be arranged so that the left side of the bounding box of the drawing object maintains only a minimum distance from the left side of the canvas box. Through this arrangement, the overall blank area can be increased.

Additionally, when adjusting the size of the canvas, the size adjuster 36 adjusts the size of the bounding box so that one side of it is adjusted in units of character width or height. For example, when looking at the top and bottom, the height of the drawing object or its bounding box is adjusted in units of character height. Or, when viewed from left to right, adjust the width of the drawing object in units of character width. The aspect ratio of a drawing object or bounding box is the same, so if you adjust either the width or height, the others are automatically adjusted.

Next, the description arrangement editing unit 37 edits the position of the symbol description.

Additionally, the description arrangement editing unit 37 changes the position of the symbol description according to the user's input and provides an editing screen for this.

Above, the invention made by the present inventor has been described in detail according to the above-mentioned embodiments, but the present invention is not limited to the above-mentioned embodiments, and of course, various changes can be made without departing from the gist of the invention.

10: user terminal
30: Drawing display system 31: Drawing acquisition unit
32: Drawing code detection unit 33: Code description extraction unit
34: Margin detection unit 35: Code description placement unit
36: Size adjustment section 37: Description arrangement editing section
40: Database 41: View document DB
42: Drawing information DB
50: Patent viewing server 80: Network

Claims (14)

In the drawing display system of patent documents using blank spaces,
A drawing acquisition unit that acquires drawings of patent documents and displays each drawing (hereinafter referred to as the relevant drawing) on a screen;
a reference number detection unit that detects reference signs and their positions in the drawing;
a code description extraction unit that extracts a code description for the drawing symbol by referring to the description of the invention in the patent document;
A margin detection unit that detects a blank area in a drawing;
a sign description arrangement unit that places a sign description in the blank area; and,
A size control unit that adjusts the size of the area on the screen where the drawing is displayed (hereinafter referred to as canvas) using the size of the blank area and the amount of characters in the symbol description of all drawing symbols,
The code description arrangement unit first arranges the description area of the corresponding reference number in the adjacent margin at the position of each reference symbol, and then, for reference symbols for which the description area has not been placed in the adjacent margin, the description area of the reference code is placed in the remaining margin. placed in the area,
The code description arrangement unit arranges the description area of the reference symbol at the margin position closest to the position of the reference symbol for a reference symbol for which the description area cannot be placed in an adjacent margin,
When arranging a description area at a non-adjacent blank position, the code description arrangement unit displays the corresponding reference number by adding it to the code description of the corresponding reference number,
The margin detection unit detects a margin area in the drawing in which the boundary of the area consists of only the horizontal and vertical sides, and detects that the length of the vertical side and the width of the area of the blank area are each equal to or greater than a predetermined length,
The length of the vertical side is set to be larger than the character height, and the width of the margin area is set to the character width of the minimum number of characters determined in advance,
The margin detector excludes the area from the margin area if the width of the area does not exceed a predetermined length,
The sign description arrangement unit sets an area (hereinafter referred to as a description area) to place the symbol description of each drawing symbol, and arranges each description area within a margin area so that it does not overlap with other description areas. The size of the description area is equal to the description of the corresponding symbol. It is determined by the font size and number, and the font size is determined by the font height and font width.
The size adjustment unit calculates the ratio of the size of the entire description area to the size of the entire margin area, determines whether it is larger than a predetermined maximum ratio, and if it is larger than the maximum ratio, adjusts the size of the canvas to increase the ratio of the entire description area. Set it to be below the maximum ratio,
After adjusting the size, the size adjusting unit detects the blank area again through the blank detecting unit, calculates the size of the entire blank area for the re-detected blank area, and compares it,
The size adjustment unit calculates the total number of characters in the description of the drawing symbol to be written in the drawing, and calculates the size of the entire description area by multiplying the number of characters by the character size. A drawing of a patent document using a blank space. Marking system.
delete delete delete According to paragraph 1,
The drawing acquisition unit detects the direction of rotation in the drawing, returns the drawing to its original direction if it is rotated, and determines the rotation direction of the drawing as the rotation direction of the reference numeral in the drawing. Drawing display system for documents.
delete delete delete According to paragraph 1,
The sign description arrangement unit sets a plurality of description areas for one drawing symbol according to the number of lines, but arranges the description area to minimize the width of the description area when arranging the symbol description within the corresponding number of lines. A drawing display system for patent documents using margins, characterized by setting them as numerical description areas.
According to clause 9,
If there are at least two description areas for one drawing symbol, the sign description arrangement unit sets the priority of each description area, and sets the priority according to the length of the symbol description of the corresponding description area, or the width and length of the description area. A drawing display system for patent documents using margins, characterized by setting priorities based on vertical ratio.
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