Patent ID: 6905071
Filing Date: 2005-06-14
Classification: B82Y,G06K

Abstract:
1. An automatically-activated bar code symbol reading device comprising: (1) a hand-supportable housing having a light transmission aperture wherethrough visible light can exit and enter said hand-supportable housing; (2) a laser scanning bar code symbol reading engine, disposed within said hand supportable housing, that can be selectively operated in one of first and second scanning modes, wherein during said first scanning mode, said laser scanning bar code symbol reading engine projects an omni-directional laser scanning pattern through said light transmission aperture, for automatically reading one or more bar code symbols on an object during a bar code symbol reading cycle, and generating a new symbol character data string in response to each bar code symbol read thereby, and wherein during said second scanning mode, said laser scanning bar code symbol reading engine projects a single line scanning pattern through said light transmission aperture, for automatically and repeatedly reading one or more bar code symbols on an object during a bar code symbol reading cycle, and generating a new symbol character data string in response to each bar code symbol read thereby; (3) a data transmission subsystem, disposed in said hand-supportable housing, for transmitting, when activated, a selected one of said produced symbol character data strings to a host system operably connected to said automatically-activated bar code symbol reading device; (4) a manually-activatable data transmission switch, integrated with said hand-supportable housing, for generating a data transmission control activation signal in response to the activation of said manually-activatable data transmission switch within a predetermined time period; and (5) a system controller for controlling said data transmission subsystem during said first and second scanning modes of operations, wherein during said first scanning mode, the symbol character data string, produced at substantially the same time when said data transmission control activation signal is generated, is transmitted to said host system, and wherein during said second scanning mode, the symbol character data string, produced at substantially the same time when said data transmission control activation signal is generated, is transmitted to said host system.