Hello Pascuala Garcia-Martinez ! Optical Pattern is very in field now a days. It is very interesting and widely used as a form of data entry from printed paper data records, whether passport documents, invoices, bank statement, receipts, business card, mail, or other documents....
It is very much alive and kicking (a bit like me). Apart from the applications mentioned in Kaleem Ullah's reply, there are applications to features of a much smaller scale. Different applications but using similar techniques.