Patent ID: 6857572
Filing Date: 2005-02-22
Classification: B82Y,G06K

Abstract:
1. A bar code symbol reading device comprising: (1) a hand-supportable housing having a light transmission aperture through which light can exit and enter said hand-supportable housing; (2) a laser scanning engine, disposed within said hand-supportable housing, that selectively operates in one of first and second scan modes, wherein in said first scan mode, the laser scanning engine projects an omni-directional scan pattern through said light transmission aperture, repeatedly detects and decodes bar code symbols on objects passing through said omni-directional scan pattern, and produces a symbol character data string representative of each bar code symbol read by said laser scanning engine during said first scan mode, and wherein in said second scan mode the laser scanning engine projects a single line scan pattern through said light transmission aperture and repeatedly detects and decodes bar code symbols on objects passing through said single line scan pattern, and produces a symbol character data string representative of each bar code symbol read by said laser scanning engine during said second scan mode, (3) a manually-activated data transmission switch integrated with said hand-supportable housing, for producing, when activated, a data transmission activation control signal in response to activation of said manually-activated data transmission switch; (4) a data transmission subsystem in said band-supportable housing for transmitting, when activated, a selected one of said produced symbol character data strings to a host device operably coupled to said bar code symbol reading device; (5) a system control subsystem for controlling said data transmission subsystem so that 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 device, and said system control subsystem deactivating said data transmission subsystem when said data transmission activation control signal is not being produced by said data transmission switch.