System and method for publishing, distributing, and reading electronic interactive books

摘要

A book or other digital content is represented as a set of objects in a relational database schema format called IBF (Interactive Book Format) and the controlling system software. This design provides for viewing books in a manner that coordinates additional information and provides interaction with the original book, while not disturbing the original publication and copyrighted material and even protecting that copyrighted material from piracy by supporting industry standard digital rights management security features. The inventive technique includes the use of conversion engines which will aid publishers in converting existing books into IBF format. The inventive technology further provides the ability to read any book in IBF format on a computer using refreshable Braille display, allowing the reader the advantage of reading all books in this format without having to purchase expensive, specially made Braille books.