Patent ID: 7869653

Claim:
A character recognition apparatus for recognizing a character string composed of a plurality of characters printed with magnetic ink on a print medium, the character recognition apparatus comprising: a magnetic sensor for detecting magnetism from the character string printed in magnetic ink and outputting magnetic data; an optical sensor for optically reading the character string printed in magnetic ink and outputting image data; magnetic recognition means for recognizing characters in the character string using the magnetic data output by the magnetic sensor, and outputting a magnetically-recognized character string; image recognition means for recognizing characters in the character string using the image data output by the optical sensor, and outputting an optically-recognized character string; column offset detection means for detecting a shift in column alignment of characters in the magnetically-recognized character string with respect to corresponding characters in the optically-recognized character string; column offset correction means for correcting the column offset and aligning corresponding characters of the magnetically-recognized and optically-recognized character strings, if the column offset detection means detects a shift in character column alignment; and comparison means for comparing results at corresponding positions in the magnetically-recognized and optically-recognized character strings based on the column alignment after column offset correction is performed by the column offset correction means, and, for each position comparison, outputting (1) the common character if the magnetically-recognized and optically-recognized character at that position match, or (2) a question mark if the magnetically-recognized and optically-recognized character at that position do not match or if one or both of the magnetically-recognized or optically-recognized character is missing.