Patent ID: 8672224

Claim:
An improved card scanner, comprising: a first machine-readable indicia reader to capture a machine-readable indicia on a side surface of a tendered card; a first defined card path coupled to said machine-readable indicia reader arranged such that said machine-readable indicia on said surface of said card comes within functional range of said machine-readable indicia reader, wherein said first defined card path provides for vertical movement for said card; a second defined card path coupled to a second machine-readable indicia reader, wherein said define card path provides lateral movement of said card perpendicular with respect to said first defined path; a processor in communication with a memory and said first and second machine-readable indicia reader, wherein said processor is operable to extract and decode information from said indicia capture; a digital camera comprising a lens and a two-dimensional sensor array for acquiring at least one two-dimensional image of a side surface of said card; and a plurality of illumination components to illuminate said side surface of a card during acquisition of said at least one two-dimensional image.