> but it seems to me that trying to patent portions of
> 60 year old barcode patents combined with your own nearly expired
> optical mouse patent is just combining two old ideas and getting a new
> patent.

Perhaps there is no patent that covers decoding barcodes with an array-based 
image sensor?  I find it hard to believe there isn't, but then I also find 
it hard to believe they would have been granted the patent if it already 
existed.

From a purely Engineering point of view, it seems that using a few optical 
mouse sensors would be a cheaper way of making a supermarket checkout than 
using those rapidly moving red beam scanning thingies.  There's definitely 
commercial potential in it if it can be developed to work just as reliably 
as the existing systems.

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