Patent ID: 8605959

Claim:
An apparatus for authenticating a user using a fingerprint reader, the apparatus comprising: an input module, comprising a fingerprint reader, that receives at least one biometric scan and a verification sequence entered by a user through the fingerprint reader that reads one or more of fingerprint ridge minutiae and fingerprint ridge patterns, the biometric scan comprising a fingerprint, wherein the verification sequence comprises a set of symbols entered using the fingerprint reader, each symbol entered by the user through one of linear motion and angular motion on the fingerprint reader while a finger of the user moves while being in contact with the fingerprint reader, each symbol comprising one or more of a number, a letter, an icon, and a sound; a feedback module that provides one or more of visual feedback and audio feedback to the user, the visual and audio feedback configured to allow the user to determine when the linear or angular motion corresponds to a symbol for selection, the visual feedback comprising an electronic display displaying the set of symbols and a visual indicator on the electronic display, wherein the linear or angular motion on the fingerprint reader moves one or more of the set of symbols with respect to the visual indicator and the visual indicator with respect to the set of symbols such that the visual feedback indicates when the linear motion or angular motion on the fingerprint reader corresponds to a symbol of the set of symbols for selection, the electronic display being a separate device from the fingerprint reader, the audio feedback comprising an audio signal that indicates when the linear motion or angular motion corresponds to each symbol of the set of symbols; a matching module that validates the user entering the biometric scan, wherein validation comprises: comparing one or more of fingerprint ridge minutiae and fingerprint ridge patterns of the at least one biometric scan with one or more of fingerprint ridge minutiae and fingerprint ridge patterns of one or more authenticated biometric scans stored in a data store, the authenticated biometric scans comprising a fingerprint, and validating the biometric scan in response to the biometric scan matching at least one authenticated biometric scan; comparing the verification sequence entered by the user using the fingerprint reader with an authenticated verification sequence stored in the data store and validating the verification sequence in response to the verification sequence matching the authenticated verification sequence; and an authentication module that authenticates the user to a system in response to the matching module validating the verification sequence against the authenticated verification sequence and further in response to the matching module validating the biometric scan against the authenticated biometric scan.