Signing with your eyes

Patent metadata

Field	Value
Publication number	US-10866633-B2
Application number	US-201715445469-A
Country	US
Kind code	B2
Filing date	Feb 28, 2017
Priority date	Feb 28, 2017
Publication date	Dec 15, 2020
Grant date	Dec 15, 2020

Abstract

A user's signature may be decomposed into one or more components. The components may be described using one or more control points. A user may sign with their eyes by focusing their gaze on a set of these control points that make up the signature. If the user's gaze is within a threshold distance from a control point the signature is validated. Moreover, by modifying the control points based upon the actual gaze location (which is within the threshold distance), the signature may be slightly modified. For example, the signature may be decomposed into one or more components as Bezier curves and the user may be asked to focus on each control point of each of the one or more Bezier curves. Modifying the control points of a Bezier curve slightly still produces a smooth curve, but introduces natural variations.

First claim

What is claimed is:

1. A non-transitory machine-readable storage device that includes instructions which when executed by a machine, cause the machine to perform operations for signing an object, the operations comprising:
displaying a visual representation of a component of a signature of a user on a display screen, the visual representation of the component of the signature of the user is defined by a plurality of control points;
displaying, according to a defined sequence, an indicator proximate to, or at, each control point of the plurality of control points on the display screen;
detecting that the user has registered each of the plurality of control points in order according to the defined sequence, a control point registered by receiving, for each particular control point, an input, from an input device, at a set of coordinates, the set of coordinates being within a predetermined threshold distance of the particular control point;
responsive to detecting that the user has registered the particular control point:
moving a location of the particular control point to a different location, the different location based upon the input set of coordinates corresponding to the registration of the particular control point; and
modifying the displayed visual representation of the component of the signature based upon the different location of the particular control point;

responsive to detecting that the user has registered each of the plurality of control points in order according to the defined sequence, outputting an indication that the user has agreed to sign the object.

2. The non-transitory machine-readable storage device of claim 1 , wherein the object is a digital document and wherein the operations of outputting the indication that the user has agreed to sign the object comprises affixing a digital representation of the modified visual representation of the component of the signature to the digital document.

3. The non-transitory machine-readable storage device of claim 1 , wherein the object is a physical object and wherein the operations of outputting the indication that the user has agreed to sign the object comprises outputting instructions executable by a machine to sign the modified visual representation of the component of the signature on the physical object.

4. The non-transitory machine-readable storage device of claim 1 , wherein the input is received from one of: a gaze tracking device, a sip-and-puff device, a mouse, a stylus, and a pen.

5. The non-transitory machine-readable storage device of claim 1 , wherein registering the particular control point comprises receiving the input at the set of coordinates within the predetermined threshold distance of the particular control point for a predetermined time period.

6. The non-transitory machine-readable storage device of claim 1 , wherein at least three of the plurality of control points are control points describing a Bezier curve, the Bezier curve approximating a portion of the signature of the user.

7. The non-transitory machine-readable storage device of claim 1 ,
wherein a visual representation of the indicator is distinct from the displayed visual representation of the component of the signature.

8. The non-transitory machine-readable storage device of claim 1 , wherein the operations comprise:
receiving facial recognition data from the user from an image capture device;
authenticating the user based upon a match between the facial recognition data from the user and stored facial recognition data from the user.

9. The non-transitory machine-readable storage device of claim 1 , wherein the operations comprise:
receiving a digital representation of the signature; and
determining the visual representation of the component of the signature and the plurality of control points by converting the digital representation of the signature to one or more Bezier curves based upon a threshold of summed slope tangents of consecutive points of the digital representation.

10. A method for signing an object, the method comprising:
displaying a visual representation of a component of a signature of a user on a display screen, the visual representation of the component of the signature of the user is defined by a plurality of control points;
displaying, according to a defined sequence, an indicator proximate to, or at, each control point of the plurality of control points on the display screen;
detecting that the user has registered each of the plurality of control points in order according to the defined sequence, a control point registered by receiving, for each particular control point, an input, from an input device, at a set of coordinates, the set of coordinates being within a predetermined threshold distance of the particular control point;
responsive to detecting that the user has registered the particular control point:
moving a location of the particular control point to a different location, the different location based upon the input set of coordinates corresponding to the registration of the particular control point; and
modifying the displayed visual representation of the component of the signature based upon the different location of the particular control point;

responsive to detecting that the user has registered each of the plurality of control points in order according to the defined sequence, outputting an indication that the user has agreed to sign the object.

11. The method of claim 10 , wherein the object is a digital document and wherein outputting the indication that the user has agreed to sign the object comprises affixing a digital representation of the modified visual representation of the component of the signature to the digital document.

12. The method of claim 10 , wherein the object is a physical object and wherein outputting the indication that the user has agreed to sign the object comprises outputting instructions executable by a machine to sign the modified visual representation of the component of the signature on the physical object.

13. The method of claim 10 , wherein registering the particular control point comprises receiving the input at the set of coordinates within the predetermined threshold distance of the particular control point for a predetermined time period.

14. The method of claim 10 , wherein
a visual representation of the indicator is distinct from the displayed visual representation of the component of the signature.

15. A system for signing an object, the system comprising:
a processor;
a memory communicatively coupled to the processor and including instructions, which when executed by the processor cause the system to perform operations comprising:
displaying a visual representation of a component of a signature of a user on a display screen, the visual representation of the component of the signature of the user is defined by a plurality of control points;
displaying, according to a defined sequence, an indicator proximate to, or at, each control point of the plurality of control points on the display screen;
detecting that the user has registered each of the plurality of control points in order according to the defined sequence, a control point registered by receiving, for each particular control point, an input, from an input device, at a set of coordinates, the set of coordinates being within a predetermined threshold distance of the particular control point;
responsive to detecting that the user has registered the particular control point:
moving a location of the particular control point to a different location, the different location based upon the input set of coordinates

Assignees

• Microsoft Technology Licensing Llc

Inventors

• Campbell Jonathan T
• Kulkarni Harish S

Classifications

• G06F21/32 Primary

  using biometric data, e.g. fingerprints, iris scans or voiceprints · CPC title

• G06V40/193

  Preprocessing; Feature extraction · CPC title

• G06V40/382

  Preprocessing; Feature extraction · CPC title

• G06F3/013 Primary

  Eye tracking input arrangements (G06F3/015 takes precedence) · CPC title

• G06K9/00187

  Physics · mapped topic