(19)
(11) EP 1 450 294 A8

(12) CORRECTED EUROPEAN PATENT APPLICATION
Note: Bibliography reflects the latest situation

(15) Correction information:
Corrected version no 1 (W1 A1)

(48) Corrigendum issued on:
07.06.2006 Bulletin 2006/23

(43) Date of publication:
25.08.2004 Bulletin 2004/35

(21) Application number: 03026274.5

(22) Date of filing: 14.11.2003
(51) International Patent Classification (IPC): 
G06K 9/22(1980.01)
 G06F 3/033(1980.01)
(84) Designated Contracting States:
AT BE BG CH CY CZ DE DK EE ES FI FR GB GR HU IE IT LI LU MC NL PT RO SE SI SK TR

(30) Priority: 21.01.2003 US 347331

(71) Applicant: MICROSOFT CORPORATION
Redmond, WA 98052 (US)

(72) Inventors:
  • Dodge, Steve
    N.E., Sammamish WA 98074 (US)
  • Gounares, Alexander
    N.E., Kirkland WA 98034 (US)
  • Goldberg, Arin J.
    Woodinville WA 98072 (US)
  • Dresevic, Bodin
    S.E. Bellevue WA 98007 (US)
  • Turner, Jerome J.
    Redmond WA 98052 (US)
  • Rhoten, Matthew Paul
    Seattle WA 98105 (US)
  • Chambers, Robert L.
    Sammamish WA 98075 (US)
  • Raghupathy, Sashi
    Redmond WA 98052 (US)
  • Kannapel, Timothy H.
    Bellevue WA 98006 (US)
  • Zielinski, Tobiasz
    Redmond WA 98053 (US)
  • Szilagyi, Zoltan C.
    Redmond WA 98052 (US)

(74) Representative: Grünecker, Kinkeldey, Stockmair & Schwanhäusser Anwaltssozietät 
Maximilianstrasse 58
80538 München
80538 München (DE)

   


(54) Ink divider and associated application program


(57) Methods for communicating between an application and an ink divider object (which stores ink strokes to be divided into groups) may include: (a) issuing a divide request to the ink divider object, optionally by the application; (b) in response to the divide request, calling a divide method, which groups the stored ink strokes into one or more groupings of strokes having a first predetermined granularity (e.g., words, lines, paragraphs, sentences, drawings, etc.); and (c) making information regarding the one or more groupings of strokes available to the application. This "information" made available to the application may include, for example, the actual groupings of the strokes, the number of stroke groupings having the first predetermined granularity, machine generated text corresponding to the stroke groupings, or the like. The results of the divide method may be stored in an ink division result object. In some examples, the ink division result object may include the originally divided strokes and allow retrieval of groupings of strokes of various different granularities. This invention also relates to systems for performing the above methods and various data structures used in performing these methods.