Patent ID: 7546949

Claim:
A bar code scanner, comprising: a detection and decoding module for analyzing light scattered from a bar code to extract characters represented by the bar code; and a bar code data analysis module for identifying a format of the bar code and transferring bar code information and format identification information to a host system, the bar code data analysis module being operative to identify indicia that appears in the bar code and respond as indicated by the indicia; wherein the bar code data analysis module is programmed with a plurality of possible responses associated with a plurality of possible indicia and wherein programming of the bar code data analysis module includes associating application identifiers with a set of programming bits, the values of combinations of one or more bits in the set of programming bits indicating choices of options for responses to the application identifiers; wherein the possible responses include passing the bar code information to the host system with or without the components comprising the indicia, as indicated by the indicia; and wherein one possible response indicated by the indicia is to identify the format of the bar code to the host system as a format indicated by the indicia and different from an actual format of the bar code.