Character identification technique

Claim 1

A CHARACTER RECOGNITION SYSTEM COMPRISING A RASTER TYPE SCANNING DEVICE FOR SCANNING A FIELD OF VIEW CONTAINING A CHARACTER TO BE IDENTIFIED, SAID CHARACTER TO BE IDENTIFIED IN TERMS OF PLURAL RECOGNITION ELEMENTS DEFINED BY SEQUENTIAL COMBINATIONS OF PULSES GENERATED BY SAID RASTER SCANNING DEVICE IN ACCORDANCE WITH THE CHARACTER TO BE IDENTIFIED AND THE SEQUENCE IN WHICH SAID PLURAL RECOGNITION ELEMENTS ARE DETECTED, PLURAL RECOGNITION LOGIC CIRCUIT MEANS EQUAL IN NUMBER OF SAID DIFFERENT PLURAL RECOGNITION ELEMENTS EACH HAVING PLURAL SIGNAL PULSE INPUT TERMINALS AND TIMING PULSE INPUT TERMINALS AND ONE RECOGNITION OUTPUT TERMINAL, PLURAL TIME GATE GENERATOR MEANS FOR GENERATING TIMING PULSES, THE TIMING GATE GENERATING MEANS BEING CONNECTED TO SAID RASTER TYPE SCANNING DEVICE AND OPERATING IN CONTROLLED SYNCHRONISM WITH SAID RASTER SCANNING DEVICE, SAID PLURAL RECOGNITION LOGIC CIRCUIT MEANS EACH BEING CONNECTED THROUGH SAID INPUT TERMINALS TO RECEIVE INPUT PULSES FROM SAID RASTER TYPE SCANNING DEVICE AN SAID PULSE TIMING GATE GENERATOR TO PROVIDE AT SAID OUTPUT TERMINAL AN ELECTRICAL SIGNAL, SAID OUTPUT TERMINAL OF EACH RECOGNITION LOGIC CIRCUIT MEANS RECEIVING AN OUTPUT SIGNAL IN ACCORDANCE WITH THE CHARACTER BEING IDENTIFIED AND IN TIME SEQUENCE WITH OUTPUT SIGNALS APPEARING AT THE OTHERE OUTPUT TERMINALS AS DETERMINED BY THE CHARACTER BEING IDENTIFIED, PLURAL SHIFT REGISTERS EQUAL IN NUMBER TO SAID PLURAL RECOGNITION LOGIC CIRCUIT MEANS EACH HAVING A NUMBER OF STAGES TO ACCOMMODATE THE SEQUENTIALLY DETECTED RECOGNITION ELEMENTS IN A CHARACTER, EACH OF SAID SHIFT REGISTERS BEING SHIFTED EACH TIME AN OUTPUT SIGNAL APPEARS AT THE OUTPUT TERMINAL OF ONE OF SAID RECOGNITION LOGIC CIRCUIT MEANS SO THAT AT THE COMPLETION OF A COMPLETE SCAN OF A FIELD OF VIEW THE CONTENT OF ALL OF SAID REGISTERS BEING INDICATIVE OF THE CHARACTER BEING IDENTIFIAED.