A novel Pattern Accumulated Vector(PAV) method implemented by CAM-based architecture has been proposed for character recognition in license plate recognition(LPR). Instead of comparing all the pattern blocks, the PAV method adopts the principal pattern blocks as feature vectors so that the computation complexity is highly reduced. Furthermore, the PAV method adopts the extended templates for the character recognition and is proved to have higher recognition rate when dealing with license plates consisting inclined characters. Finally, the CAM architecture is used to further reduce the processing time and makes the PAV method more efficient for real-time LPR systems.