The Digital Paper technology is enabled through a proprietary pattern which is owned and licensed by Anoto AB. The Digital paper is created by printing a proprietary pattern of very small dots on ordinary paper that is perceived by the eye as a slightly off-white color.

The dots have a nominal spacing of 0.3 mm (0.01 inch).

A minute portion of the total pattern uniquely defines its position in the full pattern, 60,000,000 square kilometres, which is equivalent to an area exceeding that of Europe and Asia combined. Unique patterns within different check-boxes can be assigned different functions such as E-mail, Graphical SMS, Fax and SEND.

When using digital pen and paper enabling DP&P technology, a tiny camera in the pen registers the pen's movement across the grid surface on the paper and stores it as series of map coordinates. These coordinates correspond to the exact location of the page you’re writing on. When you make a mark in the SEND box with your digital pen, the pen is instructed to send the stored sequence of map coordinates, which are translated into an image that will result in an exact copy of your handwriting displayed on any computer anywhere in the world.

With a digital pen, Anoto patterned paper and Destiny Wireless, you can store and transmit basically anything you write or draw from anywhere in the world to anyone with a mobile phone or personal computer.

The digital pen looks and feels just like an ordinary ballpoint pen and you use it in the same way. There are no keys to press and no display. You activate the pen simply by removing the cap and deactivate it by replacing the cap.

The main parts of the digital pen are a digital camera, an advanced image-processing unit and a communication unit. It also contains an ink cartridge so that you can actually see what you have written or drawn.

As you or one of your field team staff write, a built-in digital camera in the pen continuously takes pictures of the patterned paper.

When the entry fields are completed and the message written, a mark in the SEND box will trigger the pen to establish contact with your mobile phone over, for instance, a Bluetooth radio link. Alternatively the Digital Pen can be “docked” and the data transferred to a Personal Computer via a USB port.

The battery and memory of the Digital Pen is sufficient to complete 40 full pages of handwriting.

The data captured by the Digital Pen is transmitted through a mobile phone using Bluetooth technology. With a mobile phone, the following checks can be incorporated in the data transmission:

• Notification if any required fields are not completed
• Confirmation when the data file has been sent
• Notification if the data file transmission failed
• Battery life of pen

In the event that the mobile is out of coverage the forms can still be sent to the mobile and they will remain on the mobile until the user moves back into coverage and the forms will be sent automatically.

Using the Destiny information infrastructure, the digital information transmitted by the Digital Pen can then be matched to the appropriate form application and manipulated in a number of ways:-

• A graphical image of the handwritten completed form can be sent to one or multiple personal computer, mobile phone or data base addresses;
• Using character and handwriting recognition applications and other translation processes, the information can be transcribed to typescript and a copy of the form in graphical and/or typescript can be sent to one or multiple computers/servers.
• The data fields in the form can be converted to ASCII and XML or other data formats and populated directly into a customer’s information systems.
• The following diagram illustrates the DP&P process from paper application through to delivery of the information to the customer