Hand-written, on-line character recognition apparatus and method

Claim 1

A hand-written, on-line character recognition apparatus comprising: (a) means for electronically receiving hand-written stroke pattern information data; (b) dictionary means organized in a tree and branch structure for electronically storing character data describing stroke characteristics of characters, the beginning and ending of each branch being taken as different nodes with one or more branches sharing the same nodes; (c) evaluation scan control means for scanning the tree and branches of the dictionary means to search for character data corresponding to the hand-written stroke pattern information data, wherein the evaluation scan control means compares the hand-written stroke pattern information data with the character data stored in the successive branches of the dictionary means, continuing on to the next successive branch as long as the degree of inconsistency does not exceed a predetermined limit and returning to the previous node to perform the same operation with respect to the character data stored in an alternative branch when the degree of inconsistency does exceed the predetermined limit; and (d) save means for storing the conditions of the evaluation scan control means, wherein at least the conditions of the evaluation scanning existing at the beginning of each branch are saved in the save means upon branching in order to allow recursive use of the branches of the character data stored in the dictionary means when the evaluation scan control means has returned to the alternative branch after the degree of inconsistency exceeded the predetermined limit.