Patent ID: 8577729

Claim:
A checkout terminal, comprising: an article code reading device configured to read a code symbol affixed to an article, decode an article code, and output the article code; a pickup image part configured to pick up an image of an area where the article, the code symbol of which is read by the article code reading device, is positioned, and output a picked-up image data; a first module configured to execute a search process and an article registration process, the search process searching an article data file, which stores a price corresponding to each article code, for a price of the article when the article code reading device reads the code symbol; a second module configured to execute an extraction process to extract an exterior characteristic of the article from the picked-up image data outputted by the pickup image part; a third module configured to determine a consistency between a first data based on the extracted exterior characteristic of the article and a second data based on the output from the article code reading device; and a fourth module configured to stop a progress of the article registration process and a progress of the search process when the third module determines that there is not a consistency between the first data and the second data, wherein the third module is configured to (i) obtain a number of articles whose exterior characteristics are extracted by the extraction process as the first data, (ii) obtain a number of article codes outputted by the article code reading device as the second data, and (iii) compare the number obtained as the first data and the number obtained as the second data to determine whether the first data and the second data are consistent with each other, and wherein the number of articles obtained as the first data is obtained based on picked-up data outputted by the image pickup part within an established time of one transaction, the established time of one transaction corresponding to an amount of time sufficient for a plurality of the articles to pass through the article code reading device during one code symbol reading operation, and the number of article codes obtained as the second data is obtained based on the number of article codes outputted by the article code reading device within the established time.