Patent ID: 7860294

Claim:
A magnetic ink character reading apparatus including a magnetic head that detects a variation in magnetic flux intensities on magnetic ink characters, in which a character recognition process is performed based on detection result data indicative of the detection result of the magnetic head so as to recognize the magnetic ink characters recorded on a recording medium on a character-by-character basis, the apparatus comprising: a reference data acquisition unit that acquires reference data corresponding to a plurality of magnetic ink characters, respectively; a one-character-corresponding data acquisition unit that extracts data corresponding to one character from the detection result data; a similarity acquisition unit that acquires a similarity between the one-character-corresponding data and reference data corresponding to the magnetic ink characters, the similarity acquisition being performed for each of the plurality of magnetic ink characters; a character recognition unit that recognizes the magnetic ink character of which the similarity acquired by the similarity acquisition unit is the highest among the plurality of magnetic ink characters as the magnetic ink character corresponding to the one-character-corresponding data; a similarity difference determining unit that determines whether a difference between the highest similarity and the second highest similarity among the similarities acquired by the similarity acquisition unit is smaller than a predetermined reference difference; and a character recognition limiting unit that limits the recognition of the character recognition unit based on the determination result of the similarity difference determining unit.