Appeal No. 1997-0012
Application No. 08/174,901
discloses a conveyor 10 for transporting mailpieces 13 having
lengthwise edges 13a and 13b, which mailpieces include address
labels or apertures 14 having lengthwise edges 20a and 20b.
The address labels and apertures 14 are illuminated by lamps
24, focused by lens system 25, scanned by image sensor 26 and
processed and enhanced by signal processor 28 for determining
the locations of the address labels and apertures on the
mailpiece.
As shown in Figures 4A through 7 of Radl, light sources
S1 and S2 are alternately utilized in order to detect the
edges of the mailpieces, and the edges of the address labels
and apertures. The signals representing the edges are
enhanced; the signals representing the remaining flat areas,
including text information, cancel each other out (column 5,
lines 35-45 and column 6, lines 22-31).
The secondary reference to Pizano relates to a business
form recognition system, means and “method for automatically
classifying streams of heterogeneous business forms” (column
1, lines 44-47). As noted by the examiner (Answer, page 10),
Pizano includes a disclosure of “extraction of characters
6
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