Patent ID: 6942150

Claim:
A Web-based mobile information access terminal for allowing an operator to access and display HTML-encoded documents located on the World Wide Web (WWW) by reading bar code symbols encoded with information specifying the location of said HTML-encoded documents on said WWW, said Web-based mobile information access terminal comprising: a hand-supportable housing; a bar code symbol reader, integrated with said hand-supportable housing, and programmed for (i) reading a bar code symbol encoded with information specifying the location of an HTML-encoded document located on the WWW, and (ii) producing symbol character data representative of said information; visual information display means, integrated with said band-supportable housing, for visually displaying information including graphical information contained in said HTML-encoded document specified by said information; Web accessing means, disposed in said hand-supportable housing and responsive to said bar code symbol reader, said Web accessing means further including (i) computing means disposed in said hand-supportable housing, and (ii) a GUI-based WWW browser program executed by said computing means, and integrated with said bar code symbol reader in said hand-supportable housing, so that, in response to said bar code symbol reader reading the bar code symbol encoded with said information, said GUI-based WWW browser program automatically accesses the HTML-encoded document specified by said information using the TCP/IP standard and the symbol character data representative of said information, and automatically displays said accessed HTML-encoded document on said visual information display means for review by the operator; and a radio-frequency (RF) transceiver, integrated with said hand-supportable housing and being operably connected to said Web accessing means, for enabling a wireless two-way telecommunication link between said Web accessing means and a base station operably connected to an Internet service provider (ISP) connected to the Internet so as to enable said Web accessing means to access said HTML-encoded document. 2 .The Web-based mobile information access terminal of claim 1 , wherein said bar code symbol reader is a device selected from the group consisting of a laser scanning bar code symbol reader, a CCD bar code symbol reader, and a wand-type bar code symbol reader.