Patent ID: 7857220

Claim:
A method of operating an automatic data collection system to perform automatic data collection, the method comprising: reading a machine-readable symbol by the automatic data collection system; automatically changing the automatic data collection system from a machine-readable symbol mode to a character recognition mode in response to information encoded in the machine-readable symbol; determining a location of a first number of human-readable characters from information encoded in the machine-readable symbol; determining a location of a second number of human-readable characters from information encoded in the machine-readable symbol, the location of the second number of human-readable characters spaced from the location of the first number of human-readable characters; automatically reading the first number of human-readable characters; and automatically reading the second number of human-readable characters; and verifying information read from the first number of human-readable characters based at least in part on information read from the second number of human-readable characters.