Patent ID: 7657093

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, wherein the column offset detection means determines that there is an offset in the character column alignment when the number of characters in the magnetically-recognized character string and the number of characters in the optically-recognized character string are not the same; 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, wherein the column offset correction means corrects the column offset by shifting one of the magnetically-recognized character string or the optically-recognized character string relative to the other according to a first correction pattern selected from two or more predefined correction patterns; and comparison means for comparing characters 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 outputting a combined recognition result of the character string based on the comparison; wherein, if a match rate of the character strings determined by the comparison means based on the column offset correction performed by the column offset correction means according to the first correction pattern is less than or equal to a specific rate, the column offset correction means corrects the column offset according to a second correction pattern selected from the two or more predefined correction patterns.