How the Digital Paper and Pen Works

The pattern principle
The pen's operating principle is based on a technology developed by Anoto company, using a specially printed paper. This latter has a hardly visible pattern in which each rectangular line intersection is marked with dots around it (on the right, on the left, above and below).
Pattern 6x6 of these dots are combined in one field. This results in the following probability ratio: 4 (left, right, above, below) to the power of 36 (number of dots) = 4722366482869645213696 possible combinations for each field. The sum of all possible combinations of different fields represents the so-called pattern.
Each of these 436 possibilities defines a unique position. A page consists of several fields like the one just described and a book consists of many of these pages. This is quite important since the usage of the Anoto functionality requires the licensing of a specific segment of the pattern possibilities.
The licensed pattern segments can be used in two different ways, either once (Unique pattern) or repeatedly (Copied pattern). A unique pattern is when different patterns are used for the same forms and a copied pattern is when the same pattern is used for the same forms. The advantage of a unique pattern is that each form can be identified through its pattern by the server system. However, it entails high costs because of the license fees.