Patent ID: 7327868

Claim:
A magnetic stripline scanner for reading lines of magnetic data on a media comprising: a portable housing having a scanning side; a magnetic field sensing means disposed within the housing proximate to the scanning side for sensing data encoded as magnetic fields upon the media when the housing is oriented with respect to the media such that the scanning side is adjacent the media and magnetic data lines, the magnetic field sensing means including: at least one ferromagnetic sense layer providing an orientation of magnetization alterable in the presence of an external magnetic field of a threshold intensity; an intermediate layer in contact with the sense layer; and at least one reference layer in contact with the intermediate layer, opposite from the sense layer; and a magnetic field orientation detector means, disposed within the housing and coupled to the magnetic field sensing means, for detecting the relative orientation of a magnetic field sensed from each of a plurality of magnetic data sectors upon the media in the magnetic data lines.