Bar code symbology capable of encoding 16-bit characters, and method and apparatus for printing and reading same
First Claim
1. A method for printing a surface with at least one bar code symbol, the method comprising the step of providing adjacently positioned groups of sequential marks, the groups including six marks at selectively spaced intervals within the groups, the marks being selected from a plurality of different widths that are integer multiples of a first width, and including six blank intervals within each of the groups, each of the blank intervals being selected from a plurality of different widths which are integer multiples of a second width, where each group has a total width substantially equal to 21 times the first width or the second width.
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Accused Products
Abstract
The new bar code symbology under the present invention directly encodes one symbol character for each human readable character in known 16-bit data character encoding standards such as Unicode. The symbology employs six bars and six spaces for each symbol, and has a total width of 21 modules for each symbol character, and thus is a (21,6) symbology. Bars and spaces in symbol characters having greater than six modules in width are eliminated, as are bounding strings of more than six adjacent one-wide elements. As a result, the symbology is wand scannable, readily printable, and can be read when out-of-focus. Parity codes are employed, to enable Hamming distances between symbol characters to be maximized, and thereby improve data security of the symbology (e.g, the total width of all bars in each symbol character is equal to an even number). As a result, the present symbology preferably encodes 80,077 data characters. By employing a prime number of symbol characters, the symbology provides robust error correcting and error detection capabilities. The encoded data characters include not only the Unicode characters, but also compressed three- and four-digit numeric characters, and compressed pairs of alphanumeric characters, each encoded as a single unique symbol character. A set of start characters under the symbology not only indicate the start of a given label but also encode data characters therein.
50 Citations
29 Claims
- 1. A method for printing a surface with at least one bar code symbol, the method comprising the step of providing adjacently positioned groups of sequential marks, the groups including six marks at selectively spaced intervals within the groups, the marks being selected from a plurality of different widths that are integer multiples of a first width, and including six blank intervals within each of the groups, each of the blank intervals being selected from a plurality of different widths which are integer multiples of a second width, where each group has a total width substantially equal to 21 times the first width or the second width.
- 15. A bar code structure comprising a plurality of adjacently positioned bars having spaces between the bars, groups of at least four bars and four spaces defining individual data characters, each group having at least four bars and four spaces selected from a plurality of different widths that are integer multiples of first and second widths, respectively, and wherein each group has a total width substantially equal to at least 20 times the first or second width.
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28. A method of decoding a bar code label formed on a surface, the method comprising the steps of:
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imaging the bar code label to produce a signal representative of each of a plurality of symbol characters therefrom; analyzing the signal to identify the symbol characters, each symbol character represented by six bars and six spaces, wherein each bar and each space being selected from integer multiples of first and second widths, respectively, and wherein each symbol character has a total width approximately equal to 21 times the first or second width; and converting each symbol character into a corresponding symbol code.
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29. A bar code structure comprising a plurality of adjacently positioned bars having spaces between the bars, groups of bars and spaces defining individual data characters, wherein a subset of the groups of bars and spaces define a set of start characters, wherein each group in the subset has a first portion identical to each of the other groups in the subset, and a second portion unique to each of the groups in the subset, and wherein the unique portion encodes at least one data character.
Specification