Patent ID: 7756335

Claim:
A computer readable memory device having instructions stored thereon that are executable by a computer to cause said computer to execute a method for determining at least one recognition candidate for a handwritten pattern comprising one or more curves and representing a plurality of symbols, said method comprising: selecting possible segmentation points in the handwritten pattern for use in segmenting the handwritten pattern and recognizing these segments of the handwritten pattern as symbols, comparing segments of the handwritten pattern to templates representing a symbol or a part of a symbol, wherein a segment of the handwritten pattern corresponds to a sequence of possible segmentation points from a first segmentation point to a second segmentation point, said comparison returning segment candidates associated to templates forming possible recognition results of the segments of the handwritten pattern, each segment candidate being associated with a measure of the match between the template and the segment of the handwritten pattern, forming a representation of sequences of segment candidates, said representation comprising data blocks corresponding to segmentation points in the handwritten pattern, wherein a data block comprises references to data blocks corresponding to subsequent segmentation points, the reference comprising information of segment candidates and associated measures for the segment of the handwritten pattern between the segmentation points, wherein said forming of a representation of sequences of segment candidates comprises forming a recognition graph having nodes and edges, wherein each node represents a possible segmentation point and each edge represents a path along a seguence of segmentation points from one node to another node, said path corresponding to a possible symbol in the handwritten pattern and being associated with at least one measure corresponding to a matching between a segment candidate and the segment of the handwritten pattern, wherein the forming of the recognition graph comprises discarding doublets of paths corresponding to the same sequences of symbols between the same nodes, comparing the representation of the sequences of segment candidates to a dictionary, said dictionary being represented as sequences of symbols, wherein a symbol in a sequence holds references to allowed following symbols, finding sequences of segment candidates that correspond to allowed sequences of symbols in the dictionary, and returning at least one of these allowed sequences of symbols as a recognition candidate for the handwritten pattern.