An article (e.g., a tire, a package, a label) having upon a surface thereof one or more identifying words composed of a plurality of letters chosen from an alphabet of distinctive letters. The letters, when uninverted, are readily distinguishable from one another upon comparison of the characteristic features of one letter with those of the remaining letters in the alphabet. In the particular embodiment illustrated, twenty-four of the twenty-six letters in the alphabet are invertible and form, when inverted, either the same letters or other letters of the alphabet. This allows uninverted words or groups of words to be selectively composed from the letters, which words, when inverted, form either the same words as or different words from the uninverted words.

A digital display device in which the digits 0, 1, 2 . . . . . 9 are formed by the combination of electrically activated elements. This device is characterized by the fact that the digits are all formed from a diagonal surface element comprising at least two superimposed portions, the upper portion of which is constant and is activated for the display of all the digits while the lower portion is activated or not, depending on the digit displayed.

An image processing apparatus has CCDs for reading image data of an original, an edge detector for detecting edges of an area specified on the original with a loop or marks of a specific color, an area detector for detecting the specified area, memories for storing the image data read by the CCDs, and a data selector and a data switching circuit for selecting the image data read by one of the CCDs which is to be supplied to an inkjet head for recording. For preventing contamination of the original, the loop or marks can be drawn on the original through an original cover including a transparent or semitransparent sheet member facing the image of the original. Images inside and outside the area or areas can be selectively reproduced in various combinations of the normal mode, red output modes involving different types of color conversion, and extinguishing mode. Image data from another source which is stored in another memory can be inserted at a desired part of the reproduced copy.

This method consists in introducing a programmed defect at the writing level; the defect will be detected at the reading level by means of a key corresponding to the writing control algorithm which is known only to the user.

A phonetic alphabet in script form called soundwriting was first adapted to English with thirty-seven letters, each representing a separate speech sound. The script uses no silient letters or other learning blocks. Spelling is made regular using soundwriting. It is adapted to a keyboard. By adding additional letters to represent new sounds the script has been expanded to include sounds of French, Spanish, Italian and German with only forty-six symbols. The spelling of these languages in soundwriting is also completely phonetic which eliminates spelling difficulties in these languages. New letters to expand soundwriting are on the keyboard. A temporary letter is used when adapting a new language to soundwriting until a permanent letter is designed for it and placed on the keyboard. Soundwriting provides a simpler and easier way of learning the vocabularies of languages to which it is adapted.