Document with chemically developable precisely defined alphanumeric characters

Claim 1

As an article of manufacture, a document comprising a substrate overprinted with a plurality of identical symbols in an ink that is visible to the eye but not recognizable by an optical character reading machine, each such symbol constituting a constraint pattern adapted to be chemically developed in selectable portions thereof by an operator-applied developing solution, that portion of the inked pattern contacted by the solution reacting chemically to create a desired one of a plurality of possible hand printable, human readable, non-smearing, machine readable characters having a precisely defined machine recognizable configuration corresponding to the sharp lines of the overprinted constraint pattern where developed by said solution, and said solution when applied to any portions of the substrate not overprinted with said ink being ineffective to provide indicia of a color and intensity readable by the machine, each of said symbols being in the form of a hollow figure divided into a plurality of hollow subfigures, said figure and subfigures being defined by discontinuous non-touching sections separated by dots which do not touch the sections or other dots, the dots being at least at each point of adjacency of one section with another, and printed in said ink with a spacing predetermined to be great enough to preclude the creation of undesired feathered edges or at intersections of a developed section with one not being developed without creating detectable discontinuities in the machine readable character as developed.

Claim 16

The method of creating an optical character recognizing machine-readable document with precisely defined hand delineated machine readable characters, comprising the steps of providing an ink that is visible to the human eye when applied to a substrate but not machine readable by an optical character reading machine, and is capable of providing a character of a color and intensity that is machine readable only where a developing solution is applied thereto, printing the substrate with said ink to provide in one printing step a plurality of identical constraint character patternS from which a language of precisely defined machine recognizable characters may be formed, said patterns being formed of discontinuous non-touching segments separated by dots which do not touch the segments or other dots, the dots being at least at each point of adjacency of one segment with another, said segments and dots being visible to the human eye and with a predetermined spacing corresponding to the maximum that will provide, when developed, a machine readable character without detectable discontinuities, and tracing over selectable portions of at least one pattern with the developing solution so as to develop such portions into a desired one of said characters.

Claim 17

The method of creating an optical character recognizing machine-readable document with precisely defined hand delineated machine readable characters, comprising the steps of providing an ink that is visible to the human eye when applied to a substrate but not machine readable by an optical character reading machine, and is capable of providing a character of a color and intensity that is machine readable only where a developing solution is applied thereto, printing the substrate with said ink to provide in one printing step a plurality of identical constraint character patternS from which a language of precisely defined machine recognizable characters may be formed, said patterns being formed of discontinuous non-touching segments separated by dots which do not touch the segments or other dots, the dots being at least at each point of adjacency of one segment with another, said segments and dots being visible to the human eye and with a predetermined spacing corresponding to the maximum that will provide, when developed, a machine readable character without detectable discontinuities, and tracing over selectable portions of at least one pattern with the developing solution so as to develop such portions into a desired one of said characters.