Patent ID: 7865009

Claim:
A magnetic ink character reading apparatus comprising: a magnetic head that reads a variation in magnetic flux caused by a magnetic ink character string recorded on a recording medium and outputs a signal in accordance with the read variation in magnetic flux; a character recognition section that recognizes the magnetic ink character string by performing a character recognition processing based on a signal data string included in the signal output from the magnetic head; a first determination section that reads out signal data sequentially from the signal data string and determines whether or not the read signal data conform with a predetermined signal; a second determination section that determines whether or not the first determination section determines that the read signal data does not conform with the predetermined signal over at least a predetermined number of signal data consecutively; a determination number counting section that counts a number of times the second determination section determines that the first determination section determines that the read signal data does not conform with the predetermined signal over at least the predetermined number of signal data consecutively; and a character recognition processing execution limit section that controls the character recognition section to limit performing the character recognition processing based on the number counted by the determination number counting section.