METHOD AND APPARATUS FOR ANALYZING AND PROCESSING RECEIVED FAX DOCUMENTS TO REDUCE UNNECESSARY PRINTING

摘要

A method implemented in a fax machine for analyzing and processing received fax documents to identify unwanted faxes. The method applies a content based analysis to textual contents extracted from the fax by OCR, and applies an image pattern analysis to the image of the fax, as well as a statistical analysis based on past analysis results and user actions of faxes from the same sender. An overall relevance value is calculated based on the above analyses and is used to determine whether the received fax is unwanted. For unwanted faxes, the fax machine either prints the fax using a low quality printing mode, or save the fax in a memory without printing it. The user may subsequently perform various actions on the fax document, such as printing, reprinting, forwarding, deleting, etc. Such user actions are recorded as a part of the statistical information used in the statistical analysis.