Hand-held scanner
First Claim
1. A hand-held scanner for reading characters arranged in a plurality of lines recorded on a substrate, the scanner comprising:
- a housing having an elongate shape with a scanning end and a rear end;
first optical means for viewing a first area of view on the substrate adjacent the scanning end of said housing when said housing is oriented with respect to the substrate such that the scanning end of said housing is adjacent the substrate and the rear end of said housing is lifted off away from the substrate;
second optical means for viewing a second area of view on the substrate adjacent a side of said housing when said housing is oriented with respect to the substrate such that the side of said housing is adjacent the substrate, wherein a longest dimension of the second area of view is at least several times longer than a longest dimension of the first area of view; and
optical detector means, located within said housing, for detecting relative intensity of light reflected from each of a plurality of points in one of the first and second areas of view;
wherein the scanning end of said housing is moved along a line of characters to read the characters through the first area of view and wherein the side of said housing is moved over the substrate line by line to read the characters through the second area of view.
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Accused Products
Abstract
A scanner for reading characters from a string of characters recorded on a substrate. The scanner includes a character scanner that is used with a stroking motion parallel to the string of characters that permits the user to view the line being scanned as the scanner is moved across the page. A line-by-line scanner with a wide area of view may be mounted along the side of the scanner to be used in scanning a page or column on a line-by-line basis. The character scanner may include a lens of variable magnification so as to accommodate variable size print. A microphone mounted on the scanner permits the input of voice sound information. The scanner may be in communication with a computer through a cable or a wireless transmitter/receiver. The value of each pixel detected by the scanner is determined by comparing the light reflection value with a threshold that is adjusted in accordance with the values of pixels detected and averaged over previous frames. The hand-held scanner may be housed in any elongate housing for pen-like use or in a palm-held housing such as a typical mouse. An image splitter may be included within the optics to generate two separate images for separate character recognition processing.
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Citations
37 Claims
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1. A hand-held scanner for reading characters arranged in a plurality of lines recorded on a substrate, the scanner comprising:
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a housing having an elongate shape with a scanning end and a rear end; first optical means for viewing a first area of view on the substrate adjacent the scanning end of said housing when said housing is oriented with respect to the substrate such that the scanning end of said housing is adjacent the substrate and the rear end of said housing is lifted off away from the substrate; second optical means for viewing a second area of view on the substrate adjacent a side of said housing when said housing is oriented with respect to the substrate such that the side of said housing is adjacent the substrate, wherein a longest dimension of the second area of view is at least several times longer than a longest dimension of the first area of view; and optical detector means, located within said housing, for detecting relative intensity of light reflected from each of a plurality of points in one of the first and second areas of view; wherein the scanning end of said housing is moved along a line of characters to read the characters through the first area of view and wherein the side of said housing is moved over the substrate line by line to read the characters through the second area of view. - View Dependent Claims (2, 3, 4, 5, 6, 7, 8, 9, 10)
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11. A hand-held scanner for reading characters from a string of characters on a substrate comprising:
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a housing adapted to be held and moved by a hand; optical means, located within said housing, for viewing an image of an area on the substrate; an image splitter for receiving the image of the area from said optical means and producing two images of the area wherein one of the two images of the area is rotated with respect to the other of the two images of the area; optical detector means, located within said housing for detecting the relative intensity of light at a plurality of points in each of the two images and generating an electrical signal representative of the relative intensity of light in the plurality of points in each of the two images. - View Dependent Claims (12, 13, 14, 15, 16, 17, 18, 35)
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19. A mouse/scanner for reading characters from a string of characters recorded on a substrate comprising:
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a housing; a ball rotatably mounted in said housing for rotational movement when said housing is moved over the surface of the substrate; a first movement sensor, responsive to rotation of said ball about a first axis, for generating a first movement signal; a second movement sensor, responsive to rotation of said ball about a second axis, for generating a second movement signal; first optical means, located within said housing, for viewing an area of view outside of the projection of the housing'"'"'s bottom face on the substrate, so that the user may view a field of view that includes the area of view; optical detector means, located within said housing, for detecting the relative intensity of light reflected from each of a plurality of points in the area of view; and communication means, located in said housing, for sending any of the signals generated from said first movement sensor means, said second movement sensor means and said optical detector means to a host computing means. - View Dependent Claims (20, 21, 22, 23)
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24. A hand-held scanner for reading characters from a string of characters recorded on a substrate, comprising:
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a housing, being adapted such that the scanner may be conveniently moved over the substrate surface, along the string of characters, the housing having a bottom face adjacent the substrate, the bottom face forming a projection on the substrate; first optical means, located within the housing, for viewing a first area of view; optical detector means, located within the housing, for detecting the relative intensity of light reflected from each of a plurality of points in the first area of view; wherein the housing is further adapted such that the first area of view is outside of the projection of the housing'"'"'s bottom face on the substrate, so that the user may view a field of view which includes the first area of view, and such that the field of view is entirely unobstructed by the housing in at least one direction along the string of characters from the first area of view, so as to facilitate tracking. - View Dependent Claims (25, 26, 27, 28, 29, 30, 31, 32, 33)
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34. A hand-held scanner for reading characters arranged in a plurality of lines recorded on a substrate, the scanner comprising:
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a housing having an elongate shape with a scanning end and a rear end; first optical means for viewing a first area of view on the substrate adjacent the scanning end of said housing when said housing is oriented with respect to the substrate such that the scanning end of said housing is adjacent the substrate and the rear end of said housing is lifted off away from the substrate; second optical means for viewing a second area of view on the substrate adjacent a side of said housing when said housing is oriented with respect to the substrate such that the side of said housing is adjacent the substrate, wherein a longest dimension of the second area of view is at least several times longer than a longest dimension of the first area of view; and optical detector means, located within said housing, for detecting relative intensity of light reflected from each of a plurality of points in one of the first and second areas of view.
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36. A mouse-scanner for reading characters from a string of characters recorded on a substrate comprising:
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a housing; a ball rotatably mounted in said housing for rotational movement when said housing is moved over the surface of the substrate; a first movement sensor, responsive to rotation of said ball about a first axis, for generating a first movement signal; a second movement sensor, responsive to rotation of said ball about a second axis, for generating a second movement signal; first optical means, located within said housing, for viewing an area of view; optical detector means, located within said housing, for detecting the relative intensity of light reflected from each of a plurality of points in the area of view; a microphone mounted on said housing; and wireless communication means for communicating with a host computing means so as to be able to provide the host computing means with any of signals generated through said optical detector means and signals generated through said microphone. - View Dependent Claims (37)
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Specification