Code 16K — format provenance and usability
================================================

This file records the public engineering basis for the Code 16K support in
Sythos Barcode Universal. It is not legal advice and does not grant a patent,
trademark or standards licence.

Format background
-----------------

Code 16K is a compact stacked barcode that uses Code 128 symbol characters in
multiple rows. Public descriptions, including the USS Code 16K reference,
describe the row framing, row count, Code 128 data sets and the two modulo-107
check characters. The implementation uses those structural properties with
original Sythos TypeScript and generated JavaScript.

Patent and trademark status
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[REGISTRY CHECK REQUIRED] The project has not established a definitive current
patent-family, term or trademark position for every Code 16K jurisdiction.
The format name is used descriptively. Users with a regulated or commercial
deployment must obtain their own legal and standards review.

Implementation boundary
----------------------

The writer, reader and detector are original MIT-licensed Sythos work. They
validate every row, the row framing, both global check characters and complete
geometry before returning a result. The implementation supports the bounded
Code 128 A/B/C and optional GS1 profiles documented in the format guide; modes
that need a dedicated shift encoder are rejected rather than guessed.

Third-party software such as ZXing or BWIPP, when used by maintainers, is used
only as an independent black-box validation tool. No third-party source code,
tables or runtime dependency is copied or shipped in this SDK. Please open a
GitHub issue with any contrary note, patent concern or format correction so it
can be reviewed and recorded.

License of this implementation
-------------------------------

The original implementation is distributed under the MIT License in the
repository root. The format's external names and rights remain separate from
the SDK licence.

References
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- USS Code 16K public reference for row framing and check-character structure.
- Code 128 public descriptions for the underlying symbol alphabet.
- `NOTICE.md` attribution and verification log in this repository.