Information conveyance system and printing medium having IC chips
View Patent ↗Additional information of visual information printed on a printing medium can be stored in a large volume and can be provided easily. A photograph is printed on a photograph printing paper roll embedded with an IC chip having unique ID. A Web server stores additional information of the photograph in relation to the unique ID, and the URL address of the Web server is written in a ROM of the IC chip. The URL address sent from a transmission unit of the IC chip is received by a terminal, and the terminal accesses the server based on the URL address to obtain the additional information.
1. An information conveyance system comprising:
printing means for printing visual information on a printing medium embedded with an IC chip that has a unique ID;
ID reading means for reading the ID of the IC chip;
output means for outputting to a server the ID that has been read and additional information of the visual information while relating the ID to the additional information; and
a server that can store the additional information in relation to the ID output from the output means and can provide the additional information in response to an access request from a terminal for accessing the additional information corresponding to the ID, wherein
the IC chip has a storage unit that stores access information corresponding to the ID and used for accessing the server, and a transmission unit that can send the access information to the terminal, in addition to the unique ID; wherein
said access information comprises information that specifies an address of the server corresponding to the unique ID of the IC chip, or information that specifies a phone number of an automatic audio response server, and is stored separately from the unique ID.
2. An information conveyance system as defined in claim 1 , wherein the server comprises access notification means for notifying the terminal requesting an access to the additional information of the fact that an access has already been made to the additional information, in the case where the server receives the access request for the additional information that has already been accessed.
3. An information conveyance system as defined in claim 1 , wherein the terminal comprises access notification means for notifying an operator of the terminal of the fact that the additional information has been accessed, in the case where the terminal receives from the IC chip the access information for accessing the additional information that has already been accessed.
4. An information conveyance system as defined in claim 1 , wherein the terminal comprises:
an IC reader for reading the access information from the IC chip; and
access means for accessing the server corresponding to the access information read from the IC chip.
5. An information conveyance system as defined in claim 1 wherein the terminal comprises:
an IC reader for reading the access information from the IC chip;
access means for accessing the server corresponding to the access information read from the IC chip; and
access prohibition means that can inactivate the access means when the terminal receives from the IC chip the access information for the additional information that has already been accessed.
6. An information conveyance system as defined in claim 1 , wherein the terminal comprises transmission interruption means that can interrupt an operation of the transmission unit of the IC chip, based on a transmission interruption instruction.
7. An information conveyance system as defined in claim 1 , wherein
the visual information is a photograph; and
the printing means is photograph printing means.
8. An information conveyance system as defined in claim 7 , wherein
the photograph is obtained by a digital camera, and
the additional information includes accompanying information of the photograph that is attached to the photograph by the digital camera.
9. An information conveyance system as defined in claim 1 , further comprising writing means for writing the access information for accessing the server corresponding to the ID of the IC chip.