Anoto Group AB (formerly C Technologies) is a Swedish cloud-based software provider (

SaaS Software as a service (SaaS ) is a cloud computing service model where the provider offers use of application software to a client and manages all needed physical and software resources. SaaS is usually accessed via a web application. Unlike oth ...

Products

Digital Pen

The Digital Pen is an ink pen combined with a digital camera that digitally records everything that is written. It works by recognizing a non-repeating dot pattern printed on the paper. The non-repeating nature of the pattern means that the pen is able to determine which page is being written on, and where on the page the pen is. The dot pattern can be printed on a professional

offset printing Offset printing is a common printing technique in which the inked image is transferred (or "offset") from a plate to a rubber blanket and then to the printing surface. When used in combination with the lithography, lithographic process, which ...

press or on a

laser printer Laser printing is an electrostatic digital printing process. It produces high-quality text and graphics (and moderate-quality photographs) by repeatedly passing a laser beam back and forth over a Electric charge, negatively charged cylinder call ...

. Dots are printed in black; other colors of ink are invisible to the pen's IR sensor. On a color laser printer, CMY can be mixed to produce a near-black color that is

human-readable In computing, a human-readable medium or human-readable format is any encoding of data or information that can be naturally read by humans, resulting in human-readable data. It is often encoded as ASCII or Unicode text, rather than as binary da ...

. For offset printing, Anoto developed an ink color called "Anoto substitute black", a non-

carbon Carbon () is a chemical element; it has chemical symbol, symbol C and atomic number 6. It is nonmetallic and tetravalence, tetravalent—meaning that its atoms are able to form up to four covalent bonds due to its valence shell exhibiting 4 ...

-based black ink that is invisible in the IR region, allowing the user to include human-readable black marks with the dot pattern without interference. While some of Anoto's licensees have targeted the consumer sector, with, for example, learning toys, most licensees sell their products to providers who put together customized

vertical market A vertical market is a market in which vendors offer goods and services ''specific'' to an industry, trade, profession A profession is a field of Work (human activity), work that has been successfully professionalized. It can be defined a ...

systems. Anoto also sells a

software development kit A software development kit (SDK) is a collection of software development tools in one installable package. They facilitate the creation of applications by having a compiler, debugger and sometimes a software framework. They are normally specific t ...

(SDK), numerous software applications, and the Anoto Forms Solution (AFS). In addition, Anoto sells an

ASIC An application-specific integrated circuit (ASIC ) is an integrated circuit (IC) chip customized for a particular use, rather than intended for general-purpose use, such as a chip designed to run in a digital voice recorder or a high-efficien ...

design for the image processing component of the pen; most pen licensees use the same basic design of optical assembly and pen internals. Models include: *

Ericsson (), commonly known as Ericsson (), is a Swedish multinational networking and telecommunications company headquartered in Stockholm, Sweden. Ericsson has been a major contributor to the development of the telecommunications industry and is one ...

Chatpen CHA-30 (discontinued) *

Nokia Nokia Corporation is a Finnish multinational corporation, multinational telecommunications industry, telecommunications, technology company, information technology, and consumer electronics corporation, originally established as a pulp mill in 1 ...

SU-1B Digital Pen (discontinued) * Nokia SU-27W (successor to SU-1B,

rebrand Rebranding is a marketing strategy in which a new name, term, symbol, design, concept or combination thereof is created for an established brand with the intention of developing a new, differentiated identity in the minds of consumers, investors ...

ed Logitech io

* Logitech io2 Digital Pen * Logitech io Digital Pen (earlier version, discontinued) *

Maxell , commonly known as Maxell, is a Japanese company (law), company that manufactures consumer electronics. The company's name is a contraction of "Maximum capacity dry cell". Its main products are Battery (electricity), batteries, wireless chargi ...

Digital Pen (an earlier version might have been discontinued) *

Hewlett-Packard The Hewlett-Packard Company, commonly shortened to Hewlett-Packard ( ) or HP, was an American multinational information technology company. It was founded by Bill Hewlett and David Packard in 1939 in a one-car garage in Palo Alto, California ...

Digital Pen 200 (discontinued) (

ed Logitech) * Hewlett-Packard Digital Pen 250 *

Fly (pentop computer) Flies are insects of the order Diptera, the name being derived from the Greek δι- ''di-'' "two", and πτερόν ''pteron'' "wing". Insects of this order use only a single pair of wings to fly, the hindwings having evolved into advanced ...

* Tag (LeapFrog) * Livescribe Pulse Smartpen * Livescribe Echo Smartpen * Livescribe Sky WiFi Smartpen * Anoto Digital Pen DP-201 (Live pen 1) * Anoto Digital Pen io2 Bluetooth * Anoto Digital Pen DP-301 * Polyvision Digital Stylus (DP-301) * Anoto Live pen 2 *Anoto Digital Pen AP-701 *Livescribe Aegir Smartpen * Oxford Papershow

C.AI

Cognitive Artificial Intelligence is a cloud based AI program designed for offline education use. A digital pen aggregates and converts written analogue data on paper to digital data, and combined with a diagnostics assessment platform, enables an AI algorithm to recommend an individualized study plans.

aDNA

Anoto's dot pattern, when used with aDNA, allows for the unique and unobtrusive marking of physical objects. This then enables easy identification of individual objects using ubiquitous mobile devices such as phones and tablets. aDNA is opening up new possibilities for product innovation, marketing insights, and supply-chain control.

C-Pen

Anoto used to develop and sell the C-Pen, a one-line text scanner.

Patents

Anoto holds more than 300 international

patent A patent is a type of intellectual property that gives its owner the legal right to exclude others from making, using, or selling an invention for a limited period of time in exchange for publishing an sufficiency of disclosure, enabling discl ...

s on their technology and some 300 additional patent applications. In 2004, Anoto prevailed in a patent infringement lawsuit filed by Oral Sekendur regarding Anoto's dot-pattern technology. The Sekendur patent was held invalid. In 2019, Anoto secured summary judgement against City Soft Limited and one of its directors for infringing on Anoto's intellectual property.

References

External links

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Anoto company website Innovios Limited: example of private company using Anoto productHabitualdata: Anoto Gold Partner in SpainDigital Pen Corporation: Anoto Gold Partner in Europe
* *{{cite news, title= The hot new medium: Paper, url=https://www.wired.com/wired/archive/9.04/anoto_pr.html, publisher= Wired Magazine , date= 2001-04-01 , accessdate= 2010-07-13 Information technology companies of Sweden Computer companies of Sweden Computing input devices Computer peripheral companies Computer hardware companies Swedish brands