Why are all OCR feature phones Korean/Japanese?

[munty]

I want to add the OCR (Optical Character Recognition) feature to my phone (SE K700i). I realise that the phone just does not have the hardware/software capabilty and I need to buy a smartphone, but all the reviews I have seen for phones that have this capabilty are launched in Korea or Japan (eg LG KP3800, Curitel PH-K2500v or Pantec PH-K1500).
Why is this feature not on US or European phones yet? Does it require CDMA or UMTS to work (I can't see why)?
Can anyone put me in touch with a s/w provider that sells this feature as an plugin to Windows Mobile, Smybian, Java or the like. This will then help me decide what replacement phone to buy.
Thanks.

[Dynamoo]

The Sharp 902 has OCR and a barcode reader (I've never really used it though). That's pretty widely available in Vodafone territories.

[munty]

Thanks for the reply, but I checked the Sharp 802 features on their site and no OCR feature mentione. Did you install this ater?