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:
Feb. 06, 2001
Filed:
Mar. 21, 1997
Mitsuaki Nakamura, Yamatokooriyama, JP;
Sharp Kabushiki Kaisha, Osaka, JP;
Abstract
A character recognition method for recognizing characters on an article having multiple character-bearing areas, such as a license plate, first involves obtaining image data from an image of the article. The method then assigns at least one parameter to a selected character-bearing area on the article. The method then attempts to obtain a correct frame which expresses the correct positional relationship between the selected character-bearing area on the article with other character-bearing areas of the article, and then uses that correct frame to perform character recognition with respect to each of the character-bearing areas of the article. To obtain the correct frame, the invention compares the image data of the article with plural candidate frames. The plural candidate frames are calculated using the predetermined positional correlation between (1) the selected character-bearing area [as represented by the at least one parameter] and (2) other character-bearing areas of the article.