Patent ID: 7673801

Claim:
An apparatus for controlling a microwave oven using a bar code comprising: an operating panel provided on a front surface of the microwave oven; a bar code scanner installed in the operating panel, and projecting light to the bar code attached to a package of food to obtain data of the bar code; and a main controller to control a cooking operation for cooking the food according to the data of the bar code obtained by the bar code scanner, wherein the bar code scanner comprises at least a first group of lamps comprising at least two lamps and a second group of lamps comprising at least two lamps to scan the bar code, the mounting angles of the lamps of the first and second groups of lamps are identical to each other, the lamps of the first group of lamps have a first angle of projection of light irradiated from the lamps, and the lamps of the second group of lamps have a second angle of projection of light irradiated from the lamps that is smaller than the first angle of projection.