System and method for storing and retrieving digital content with physical file systems

Abstract

A system and method for retrieving and storing digital documents with physical file storage systems are provided. The disclosed system and methods allow a user to retrieve digital documents from a conventional file storage system and to seamlessly categorize and store the digital documents within the conventional file storage system. The system and method provide for receiving an identifier associated with the physical file folder; and accessing the digital documents of the physical file folder using the received identifier. The system and method further provide for storing digital content in a file folder over a network including uploading and storing the digital content; entering an identification code associated with at least one file folder; and assigning digital content to the at least one selected file folder.

What is claimed is: 
     
         1 . A method for retrieving and storing digital documents over a network, the method comprising:
 receiving an identifier through a user interface of a computing device, the identifier associated with a physical file folder;   transmitting the identifier to a server coupled to a remote database that stores an electronic file folder associated with the physical file folder, the electronic file folder having one or more digital documents;   accessing the electronic file folder and the one or more digital documents contained therein to store on the computing device;   displaying a list of the digital documents contained in the electronic file folder on the user interface of computing device;   wherein the identifier comprises information identifying the subject matter of the digital documents and information identifying the location of the digital documents.   
     
     
         2 . The method as in  claim 1 , wherein the identifier is a symbology or alpha-numeric string. 
     
     
         3 . The method as in  claim 1 , wherein the identifier is transmitted over a wireless communication network and the electronic file folder is accessed over the wireless network. 
     
     
         4 . The method as in  claim 1 , further comprising: enabling the first user to preview at least one accessed digital document; and enabling the first user to provide instructions to review, edit, email, publish, or print the at least one accessed digital document using the computing device. 
     
     
         5 . The method as in  claim 4 , wherein at least one accessed digital document is locked out from being accessed by a second user while being accessed by the first user. 
     
     
         6 . The method as in  claim 4 , wherein the displaying step further comprises indicating to the first user which of the digital documents are in use by other users. 
     
     
         7 . The method as in  claim 1 , further comprising generating a watermark on each digital document, each watermark representing a respective document identification code. 
     
     
         8 . The method as in  claim 1 , further comprising generating a single symbology containing the identifier and the document identification code. 
     
     
         9 . The method as in  claim 1 , further comprising: enabling the first user to preview at least one accessed digital document; and enabling the first user to email the at least one accessed digital document using the computing device to a second user. 
     
     
         10 . The method as in  claim 1 , wherein the computing device is a portable computing device. 
     
     
         11 . A system for retrieving and storing digital documents over a network comprising:
 an input computing device configured for: (i) scanning one or more physical documents corresponding to a physical file folder using a computing device into one or more digital documents, wherein each digital document corresponds to a physical document; (ii) uploading the digital content to a remote server for storage in a remote database; (iii) inputting an identifier associated with the physical file folder through a user interface of the computing device;   a remote database;   a remote server configured for: (i) storing the one or digital documents using the remote server into the remote database; (ii) assigning the digital content to the identifier, enabling a user to access and edit the digital content; wherein the identifier code comprises information identifying the location of the digital content in the remote database.   
     
     
         12 . The system of  claim 11 , further comprising an output computing device configured for: (i) receiving an identifier through a user interface of the output computing device, the identifier associated with a physical file folder; (ii) transmitting the identifier to the remote server coupled to a remote database that stores electronic file folder corresponding to the physical file folder, the electronic file folder having one or more digital documents; (iii) accessing the electronic file folder and the one or more digital documents contained therein to store on the computing device; (iv) displaying a list of the digital documents contained in the electronic file folder on the user interface of computing device;
 wherein the identifier comprises information identifying the subject matter of the digital documents and information identifying the location of the digital documents in the remote database.   
     
     
         13 . The system of  claim 12 , wherein the remote server is further configured for receiving the identifier, retrieving the digital documents associated with the physical file folder from the remote database and transmitting to the output computing device one or more of the digital documents. 
     
     
         14 . The system as in  claim 11 , wherein the identifier is a symbology or alpha-numeric string. 
     
     
         15 . The system as in  claim 11 , wherein the input computing device is an input portable computing device and the output computing device is an output portable computing device. 
     
     
         16 . A method implemented by a server for retrieving and storing digital documents over a network, the method comprising: receiving over the network digital documents associated with a physical file folder, the digital documents originally being created using a document composition program; assigning a document identification code to each of the digital documents; receiving over the network an identifier associated with the physical file folder; accessing the digital documents associated with the physical file folder using the received identifier; presenting a list of the digital documents to a first user; enabling the user to access at least one digital document of the presented list; and saving the at least one accessed digital document; and wherein the identifier comprises information identifying the subject matter of the digital documents associated with the physical file folder and information identifying the location of the digital documents in a database.