Patent ID: 7359532

Claim:
A method comprising: defining a plurality of minutiae in a fingerprint image including data related to x, y coordinates and an angle for a minutia and data related to a classification of the minutia as a termination or bifurcation minutia; removing minutiae that are not classified as a termination or bifurcation minutia; estimating a score associated with a minutia corresponding to a validity of the minutia based upon ridge flow properties, valley flow properties, and noise associated with the minutia for the fingerprint image, wherein the score due to noise corresponds to the amount of noise about the minutia in a pre-determined window about the minutia, and the score is further estimated based upon whether the minutia is classified as a termination or bifurcation minutia; and matching the fingerprint image against one or more sample fingerprint images utilizing a two-dimensional partial point set pattern matching (PSPM) algorithm under translation and rotation utilizing the score.