Patent ID: 7878415
Filing Date: 2011-02-01
Classification: G06K

Abstract:
1. A segmented circular bar code, comprising: inner and outer locator rings, each locator ring being a solid color and conveying the location and size of the bar code to a reading device; outboard and inboard checkered rings, the outboard checkered ring being immediately adjacent the inner locator ring, radially outboard of the inner locator ring, and the inboard checkered ring being located immediately adjacent the outer locator ring, radially inboard of the outer locator ring; at least one data ring concentrically located between the outboard and inboard checkered rings, wherein the at least one data ring comprises side-by-side data cells arranged in a circle, wherein each data cell is a binary storage location having a value of “1” or “0,” a data cell having the same color as the inner and outer locator rings having a value of “1” and a data cell having an opposite color as the inner and outer locator rings having a value of “0,” the data cells being usable to store encoded information, and wherein the outboard and inboard checkered rings convey the angular position of the data cells in the data rings to the reading device; an even number of radially-extending gaps dividing the bar code into a corresponding number of segments; gap locator cells demarcating each side of each radially-extending gap; left and right orientation cells arranged on the left and right, respectively, of one of the radially-extending gaps; a circumferentially-extending locator gap in the outer locator ring, the locator gap having an axis co-extensive with a radial line extending through the radially-extending gap between the left and right orientation cells, for conveying to the reading device the approximate orientation of the bar code and approximate location of the left and right orientation cells; and quiet regions immediately inside and outside of the inner and outer locator rings, for providing background contrast to enable location, identification, and reading of encoded data by the reading device; wherein all of the inner and outer locator rings, the outboard and inboard checkered rings, and the at least one data ring are circular have a finite radial dimension, and are concentric.