Anoto

Anoto AB

Type	Public (OMX: ANOT)
Predecessor	C Technologies
Headquarters	Lund, Sweden
Revenue	459 MSEK
Operating income	8.9 MSEK
Number of employees	110
Website	http://www.anoto.com

Anoto Group AB (former C Technologies) is a Swedish technology company that develops and licenses digital pens. With around 110 employees, the company is headquartered in Lund, Sweden, with offices in Boston, Basingstoke (in the UK), and Tokyo.

Products

The pattern of dots surrounding this letter "a" uniquely identifies its location.

Anoto's main product is the Anoto Digital Pen, a combination of ordinary ink pen and a digital camera (and supporting hardware) that digitally records everything written with the pen. It works by recognizing a special 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 press or on a laser printer. 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. For offset printing, Anoto developed an ink color called "Anoto substitute black", a non-carbon-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 solution providers who put together customized vertical market systems. Anoto also sells a software development kit (SDK), numerous software applications, the Anoto Forms Solution (AFS). In addition, Anoto sells an ASIC design for the image processing component of the pen; most pen licencees use the same basic design of optical assembly and pen internals. Anoto has approximately 350 partners, primarily in Europe, the United States, and Japan.

Optical scan voting systems are based on Anoto technology.

Models include:

• Ericsson Chatpen CHA-30 (discontinued)
• Nokia SU-1B Digital Pen (discontinued)
• Nokia SU-27W (successor to SU-1B, rebranded Logitech io2 [1])
• Logitech io2 Digital Pen
• Logitech io Digital Pen (earlier version, discontinued)
• Maxell Digital Pen (an earlier version might have been discontinued)
• Hewlett-Packard Digital Pen 200 (discontinued) (rebranded Logitech)
• Hewlett-Packard Digital Pen 250
• Fly (pentop computer)
• Tag (LeapFrog)
• Livescribe Pulse Smartpen
• Livescribe Echo Smartpen
• Livescribe Sky WiFi Smartpen
• Anoto Digital Pen DP-201
• Anoto Digital Pen io2 Bluetooth
• Anoto Digital Pen DP-301
• Polyvision Digital Stylus (DP-301)

Anoto also has a few other products:

The Anoto Forms Solution includes all components required to set up and use digital pen and paper in order to capture, transfer, and incorporate handwritten information from paper forms into any back-end system. Anoto penDocuments Pro allows users to create electronic copies of handwritten documents. Anoto penPresenter is a personal digital whiteboard. By projecting a blank PowerPoint slide, a digital whiteboard is created.

C-Pen

Anoto also develops and sells the product C-Pen, a one-line text scanner.

Patents

Anoto holds more than 300 international patents 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.

See also

• Digital pen
• Digital paper
• List of pen types, brands and companies

External links

• Anoto company website
• Innovios Limited: example of private company using Anoto product
• Habitualdata: Anoto Gold Partner in Spain
• Digital Pen Corporation: Anoto Gold Partner in Europe