Patent ID: 8011596

Claim:
An optically readable two dimensional symbol employed to encode a character string each character belonging to a source string alphabet, the two dimensional symbol comprising an ordered plurality of printable elements arranged in a rectangular array having a longitudinal axis, the rectangular array comprising a plurality of columns, each of the plurality of columns being substantially orthogonal to the longitudinal axis, the rectangular array further comprising a plurality of rows, each of the plurality of rows being substantially parallel to the longitudinal axis; wherein the printable elements are positioned in a checker board-like manner on a grid, the grid being diagonal to the longitudinal axis, wherein intersections between rows of the plurality of rows and columns of the plurality of columns define both printable element positions and spaces between printable element positions; wherein two neighboring corner positions of the optically readable two dimensional symbol are printable element positions, and two positions opposite to the two neighboring corner positions are space positions; and wherein each character of the character string is encoded into a sequence of printable elements using an encoding scheme comprising at least one code set, said at least one code set including a plurality of bit sequences, each bit sequence corresponding to a group of at least one character of the source string alphabet, each bit sequence comprising one or more binary digits, each binary digit selected from the group consisting of: a first binary digit encoded by a printable element printed in a printable element position and a second binary digit encoded by a vacant printable element position.