Patent ID: 7422153

Claim:
A method that decodes a bar code symbol that is made up of a plurality of bar code characters, the method comprising: scanning the bar code symbol a plurality times to obtain one or more signals representative of the bar code characters; decoding the one or more signals to determine a sequence of scanned bar code character values; associating a score with each scanned bar code character values; storing one or more sequences of scanned bar code character values and their associated scores in a first buffer; providing a second buffer that stores a sequence of resultant bar code character values and a cumulative score associated with each resultant bar code character value, an initial sequence of resultant bar code character values and an initial cumulative score associated with each resultant bar code character value being obtained from a first scan of the bar code symbol that results in a successful decode of at least some of the plurality of bar code characters; and updating one or more resultant bar code character values in the second buffer with corresponding one or more scanned bar code character values in the first buffer based on the score associated with the respective scanned bar code character values in the first buffer.