PARTIAL OCR NOTE CONFIRMATION METHODS

• US 20040037456A1
• Filed: 08/20/2002
• Published: 02/26/2004
• Est. Priority Date: 05/13/1999
• Status: Active Grant

• Current Assignee: Cash Processing Solutions, Inc. (De La Rue PLC)
• Original Assignee: Currency Systems International, Inc. (De La Rue PLC)
• Inventors: Haycock, Richard Glen
• Granted Patent: US 6,697,511 B1
• Time in Patent Office: Days
• US Class Current: 382/135
• CPC Class Codes: G06Q 20/1085 involving automatic teller machines [ATMs]
• CPC Class Codes: G06V 30/10 Character recognition
• CPC Class Codes: G06V 30/274 Syntactic or semantic context, e.g. balancing
• CPC Class Codes: G07D 7/12 Visible light, infrared or ultraviolet radiation
• CPC Class Codes: G07D 7/17 Apparatus characterised by positioning means or by means responsive to positioning

Abstract

Methods for identifying a note with a partial OCR of one or more characters in the note'"'"'s serial code. The methods record the characters read and associates each character read with its field position in the serial code. The method can use this information or combine the character and field information with positional information of the note within a stack in order to identify a note with a reasonable degree of statistical probability.

Claims

1. A method for identifying a note having a serial code, said method comprising the steps of:

(a) identifying at least one character of the note'"'"'s serial code;

(b) identifying the field position of said at least one character read; and

(c) identifying the recorded field position and characters to the note.

2. The method of claim 1 further comprising:

(d) identifying the note to a position in a stack of notes.

3. The method of claim 1 wherein the serial code characters are identified using an optical character recognition device.

4. The method of claim 1 wherein the position identified in step (d) is correlated to account information when the note is distributed.

5. The method of claim 1 wherein the position identified in step (d) is correlated to account information when the note is deposited.

6. A method for correlating a partially read serial code to a note, comprising the steps of:

(a) reading at least one character of a serial code;

(b) identifying the field position of at least one character read; and

(c) comparing the read character and identified field position with the serial code of a note.

7. The method of claim 6 further comprising:

(d) identifying the note by its position in a stack of notes.

8. The method of claim 7 further comprising:

(e) identifying account data to the note when distributed from said stack.

9. The method of claim 7 further comprising:

(e) identifying account data to the note when the stack is deposited.

10. A method for identifying notes distributed from an automated teller machine comprising the steps of:

a) reading at least one character of a note'"'"'s serial code

b) identifying the field position in the serial code of the character read;

c) recording the field position identified and character read; and

d) correlating account data with the recorded field character and field position data.

11. The method of claim 10 wherein the reading of step (a) and identifying of step (b) occurs before the notes are installed in the automated teller machine.

12. The method of claim 11 wherein the correlating of step (d) further comprises identifying the note by its position in a stack of notes.