The patent badge is an abbreviated version of the USPTO patent document. The patent badge does contain a link to the full patent document.
The patent badge is an abbreviated version of the USPTO patent document. The patent badge covers the following: Patent number, Date patent was issued, Date patent was filed, Title of the patent, Applicant, Inventor, Assignee, Attorney firm, Primary examiner, Assistant examiner, CPCs, and Abstract. The patent badge does contain a link to the full patent document (in Adobe Acrobat format, aka pdf). To download or print any patent click here.
Patent No.:
Date of Patent:
Aug. 17, 1999
Filed:
Sep. 12, 1997
John Avery Howard, Palo Alto, CA (US);
Apple Computer, Inc., Cupertino, CA (US);
Abstract
Apparatus for scanning an image comprising a manually-operated scanning device with a photoelectric source and having a light tunnel extending from the photoelectric source to a side of the manually-operated scanning device. The scanning device with light tunnels offers high contrast edges and encourages proper alignment of the image being scanned. In one embodiment, the scanning device has a light tunnel extending from each vertical side corresponding to and illuminating the horizontal axis to be scanned. In another embodiment, the scanning device has, in addition to light tunnels illuminating the horizontal axis, light tunnels extending from the front or horizontal side of the scanning device to illuminate the vertical boundary that is scanned by the scanning device. The light tunnels in the invention provide the user with a highly visible reference of exactly where the manually-operated scanning device's scan window is located at a particular instance.