Patent ID: 8226009

Claim:
A scanning apparatus for decoding an encoded symbol character of a symbology, comprising: a laser source operable to emit a beam along an axis and illuminate a target, the target comprising the encoded symbol character; a scanning mirror disposed intermediate the laser source and the target, the scanning mirror operable to deflect the beam emitted from the laser source so that the beam scans across the target according to a scan pattern; a focusing apparatus in optical communication with the laser source for focusing the beam on the target at an object distance; a detector operable to receive light of varying intensities scattered from the encoded symbol character and convert the light into a first signal; a digitizer operable to convert the first signal to a digital bit stream; pre-stored information correlating a non-standard symbol pattern to a valid symbol character according to a standard definition of the symbology, the non-standard symbol pattern comprising a first number of elements that deviates from a second number of elements associated with the valid symbol character; and a decoder operable to receive the digital bit stream and utilize the pre-stored information for attempting decoding of the signal, wherein the scanning apparatus is further operable to one or more of (a) change a focus distance setting of the focusing apparatus responsively to a result of the attempting decoding and (b) generate the first signal with the focusing apparatus configured at a first focus distance setting, generate a second signal with the focusing apparatus configured at a second focus distance setting, and attempt decoding of the first signal and the second signal utilizing the pre-stored information.