Patents Examined by Bradley Thies
  • Patent number: 9519447
    Abstract: The present invention provides a method of optimizing the operating conditions for printing sheets, comprising the following steps: introducing a sheet into the printing system; treating the sheet by exposing the sheet to a physical operating condition of the printing system at a predetermined level; sensing a surface geometry of the exposed sheet to generate data representing a height map of the surface of the at least one exposed sheet for that predetermined level of that operating condition; and comparing the data to one another and/or a reference value to determine the suitable level of the least one physical operating condition. The invention further provides an apparatus optimizing the operating conditions for printing sheets.
    Type: Grant
    Filed: October 7, 2015
    Date of Patent: December 13, 2016
    Assignee: OCE-TECHNOLOGIES B.V.
    Inventors: Jeroen P. J. Huijbers, Johannes P. J. C. Rooijakkers, Daisuke Kawaguchi, Hendricus F. M. Jeurissen, Catharinus Van Acquoij
  • Patent number: 9517644
    Abstract: A printing apparatus includes a medium support portion that applies suction to a printing medium and supports the printing medium, a printing unit that prints onto the printing medium supported on the medium support portion, and a transport unit that transports the printing medium supported on the medium support portion. A recessed portion is formed in the medium support portion, and a first suction opening that that applies suction to the printing medium is formed in the recessed portion on a downstream side thereof in a transport direction.
    Type: Grant
    Filed: July 30, 2015
    Date of Patent: December 13, 2016
    Assignee: Seiko Epson Corporation
    Inventors: Takeho Kamijo, Takayuki Tamaki
  • Patent number: 9517626
    Abstract: In an example, a fluid ejection apparatus includes a printhead die embedded in a printed circuit board. Fluid may flow to the printhead die through a plunge-cut fluid feed slot in the printed circuit board and into the printhead die.
    Type: Grant
    Filed: December 19, 2013
    Date of Patent: December 13, 2016
    Assignee: HEWLETT-PACKARD DEVELOPMENT COMPANY, L.P.
    Inventors: Chien-Hua Chen, Michael W. Cumbie
  • Patent number: 9511597
    Abstract: A liquid supply device includes a liquid container having a liquid containing part and a liquid supply part facing a first direction intersecting a gravity direction when supplying liquid to a liquid consumption device, a first support part supporting the liquid supply part such that the liquid supply part is positioned further to an upper side in the gravity direction than the liquid containing part and the liquid supply part moves in the first direction and a direction opposite the first direction, a liquid introduction part attached to the liquid consumption device and configured to connect with the liquid supply part by the liquid supply part moving in the first direction by the first support part, and a positioning part arranged at the liquid introduction part and configured to position the liquid supply part in a direction intersecting the first direction when connecting with the liquid supply part.
    Type: Grant
    Filed: March 13, 2015
    Date of Patent: December 6, 2016
    Assignee: Seiko Epson Corporation
    Inventors: Katsutomo Tsukahara, Tokujiro Okuno
  • Patent number: 9505236
    Abstract: When an inkjet printer includes suction means for sucking the outside air into the inkjet printer, a heated recording medium is rapidly cooled by the air flowing in a vicinity of a discharge port for the recording medium. This causes fluctuations in surface temperature, resulting in degraded image quality. Accordingly, the inkjet printer has both a configuration capable of directly sucking, into a carriage, the outside air sucked into an apparatus, and a configuration of preventing the air from passing through an inside of the carriage. Thus, a temperature of the inside of the carriage can be reduced effectively. In order to prevent a reduction in temperature of the recording medium in the vicinity of the discharge port, a heater is arranged so as to increase a heating capacity of heating. Through temperature control on the heater based on a temperature of a region that is easily reduced in temperature, a local reduction in temperature of the recording medium is suppressed.
    Type: Grant
    Filed: April 30, 2014
    Date of Patent: November 29, 2016
    Assignee: OKI Data Infotech Corporation
    Inventor: Kazuo Suzuki
  • Patent number: 9505220
    Abstract: A catcher (42) for collecting ink from non-printed drops and returning the ink to a fluid reservoir (40), the catcher includes a flow channel (47) having a plurality of branches (110); a structure to split a portion of each branch into two parallel sections to permit fluid to pass through either section; and wherein the flow of the two parallel sections (122) merge into a single flow downstream of the structure.
    Type: Grant
    Filed: June 11, 2015
    Date of Patent: November 29, 2016
    Assignee: EASTMAN KODAK COMPANY
    Inventors: Robert J. Simon, Chang-Fang Hsu, Seth C. Clark, Charles D. Rike
  • Patent number: 9505232
    Abstract: A rotary drive arrangement for a machine for printing containers includes a turntable configured to hold the container to be printed and a format adapter connected to the turntable and configured to transmit a rotational movement to the turntable. A rotary drive is configured to drive the format adapter in rotation about an axis of rotation by means of a transmission element that engages with the format adapter, wherein, in an engagement portion of the transmission element, the format adapter is designed to match an outer periphery of a surface of the container to be printed.
    Type: Grant
    Filed: September 5, 2014
    Date of Patent: November 29, 2016
    Assignee: TILL GMBH
    Inventor: Volker Till
  • Patent number: 9505242
    Abstract: A recording apparatus includes a recording section, a transportation unit, and a supporting frame. The recording section performs recording on paper. The transportation unit includes a transportation belt and a moving section. The transportation belt can transport the paper by turning. The moving section causes the transportation belt to move between a recording position, at which the recording is performed by the recording section, and a retracted position, which is more distant from the recording section than the recording position is. The supporting frame supports the transportation unit inside. A first opening portion is formed in the supporting frame. Through the first opening portion, the transportation unit supported inside the supporting frame can be drawn out from the inside of the supporting frame to the outside of the supporting frame in a state in which the transportation belt has been moved to the retracted position.
    Type: Grant
    Filed: March 1, 2016
    Date of Patent: November 29, 2016
    Assignee: Seiko Epson Corporation
    Inventor: Yuichi Segawa
  • Patent number: 9498948
    Abstract: An inkjet printer including a recording head, a carriage being movable with the recording head along a scanning direction, a corrugation mechanism to form a corrugated shape having alternately formed protrusive points and recessed points in the sheet along the scanning direction, and a controller is provided. The controller executes steps including a discharged ink amount calculating step, a timing information obtaining step, a discharging timing correcting step, and a discharging step.
    Type: Grant
    Filed: January 17, 2014
    Date of Patent: November 22, 2016
    Assignee: Brother Kogyo Kabushiki Kaisha
    Inventor: Satoru Arakane
  • Patent number: 9498970
    Abstract: A computer-implemented system for determining ink availability in one or more ink reservoirs in a print system is described. The system includes at least one ink reservoir for each color ink used in the printing system, a print unit associated with each ink reservoir configured to apply a print image including at least one color of ink to a substrate based on print image information, and an ink level monitoring system configured to determine an ink availability in each ink reservoir based on printed image count information and a total wet ink utilization based on a measured dry ink utilization per area of coverage using the print image information and corrected by an ink usage correction multiplier generated based on characterization of a print condition.
    Type: Grant
    Filed: February 12, 2015
    Date of Patent: November 22, 2016
    Assignee: QuadTech, Inc.
    Inventors: Carlo Carnelli, John Seymour, Michael Sisco
  • Patent number: 9498951
    Abstract: An inkjet nozzle device includes: a nozzle chamber having a floor, a roof and perimeter sidewalls extending between the floor and the roof, wherein a nozzle aperture is defined in the roof; a heating element for generating gas bubbles in the nozzle chamber so as to eject ink through the nozzle aperture, wherein a centroid of the heating element is aligned with a centroid of the nozzle aperture; and a pair of chamber inlets defined in the floor of the nozzle chamber, the chamber inlets being symmetrically disposed about the centroid of the heating element. The inkjet nozzle device has a pair of orthogonal symmetry planes passing through the centroid of the nozzle aperture.
    Type: Grant
    Filed: February 20, 2015
    Date of Patent: November 22, 2016
    Assignee: Memjet Technology Limited
    Inventors: Sam Mallinson, Philip Palma, David Secker, Paul Reichl, Glenn Horrocks, Angus North
  • Patent number: 9498957
    Abstract: Inkjet recording apparatus includes recording head 241 having a plurality of nozzles N, first ink storage section 242, supply passage 301 connecting recording head 241 and section 242, electromagnetic valve 310 that opens or closes section 242, second ink storage section 243, pump P1 that supplies the ink in section 243 to section 242, an electromagnetic valve 312 that opens or closes the second storage ink section 243, recovery passage 302 that connects the recording head 241 and the second storage section 243, and electromagnetic valves 307 and 308 which open or close the recovery passage 302. Control unit 40 allows ink inside the recording head 241 to reflow to the second ink storage section 243 by operating the pump P1 in a state in which the electromagnetic valves 310 and 312 are closed and the electromagnetic valve 308 is opened.
    Type: Grant
    Filed: May 15, 2014
    Date of Patent: November 22, 2016
    Assignee: Konica Minolta, Inc.
    Inventors: Hiroyuki Tokimatsu, Mitsuru Obata, Shinya Takahashi
  • Patent number: 9492999
    Abstract: Drop detection are disclosed. An example liquid dispensing device includes a controller to control dispensing of a first drop from a first orifice and a second drop from a second orifice, a sensor to monitor the first orifice to detect at least one of a presence or an absence of a drop from the first orifice and, in response to the sensor detecting an absence of the first drop, the controller is to classify the first orifice as at least one of occluded or non-functioning.
    Type: Grant
    Filed: January 2, 2015
    Date of Patent: November 15, 2016
    Assignee: Hewlett-Packard Development Company, L.P.
    Inventors: Kenneth Ward, Alexander Govyadinov
  • Patent number: 9487019
    Abstract: A light irradiation device for applying light to a target object under relative movement includes: a base; first light-emitting element groups located on an upstream side in a direction of object movement, and second light-emitting element groups located on a downstream side, which are arranged on one main surface of the base; and first lenses and second lenses which cover the respective first light-emitting element groups and the respective second light-emitting element groups, respectively. An optical axis of light emitted through each of the first lenses is inclined toward the downstream side in the direction of object movement with respect to a normal to the one main surface of the base. An optical axis of light emitted through each of the second lenses is inclined toward the upstream side.
    Type: Grant
    Filed: November 22, 2013
    Date of Patent: November 8, 2016
    Assignee: Kyocera Corporation
    Inventor: Akira Taguchi
  • Patent number: 9487033
    Abstract: The recording device includes a recording unit, a conveying unit, an ejection unit, and a controller. The controller is configured to urge a driven roller of the ejection unit toward a drive roller of the ejection unit by a first load to eject a recording medium while the recording is performed on the recording medium of which a rear end has left the conveying unit, determine whether or not the recording is finished while the driven roller is urged toward the drive roller by the first load, switch the first load to a second load, which is less than the first load, to eject the recording medium on which the recording is finished in response to determining that the recording is finished, and urge the driven roller toward the drive roller by the second load while ejecting the recording medium on which the recording is finished.
    Type: Grant
    Filed: October 5, 2015
    Date of Patent: November 8, 2016
    Assignee: Seiko Epson Corporation
    Inventors: Yuki Moriya, Yoshitaka Shimada, Kazuma Ozaki
  • Patent number: 9487032
    Abstract: A recording apparatus is provided that includes a first operating portion which operates for the first regions at both outsides further than the discharging portion in the opening width direction of the discharged paper to be positioned on the lower side (first direction side) further than the pinched position which is pinched by the discharge driving roller and the discharge driven roller, in the recording surface intersecting direction (vertical direction) intersecting with surfaces which become the recording surface, and a second operating portion which operates for the second regions on each outside of the first region in the opening width direction of the discharged paper to be positioned on the upper side (second direction side) further than the first region.
    Type: Grant
    Filed: March 1, 2016
    Date of Patent: November 8, 2016
    Assignee: Seiko Epson Corporation
    Inventor: Kohei Ueno
  • Patent number: 9487011
    Abstract: An ink cartridge has a cartridge body and an integrally molded lever. An angle, formed between the integrally molded lever and the cartridge body, is maintained at a minimum dimension by an angle size maintaining mechanism. The angle size maintaining mechanism enables remanufacturing of a used ink cartridge to reduce printer operating cost and reduce environmental waste.
    Type: Grant
    Filed: June 11, 2014
    Date of Patent: November 8, 2016
    Assignee: Inkcycle, Inc.
    Inventors: Kirk Gold, Duane Kent, Carl Thomas Ashley
  • Patent number: 9475316
    Abstract: A printer includes a base on which a medium is mounted, a liquid ejecting unit which performs printing on the medium mounted on the base, an AC servo motor which is installed in the base, and is driven when the base and the liquid ejecting unit are relatively moved, an inverter which is installed in the base and drives the AC servo motor based on power supplied from an external AC power supply, and a power supply portion which is installed in the base and supplies the power supplied from the AC power to the liquid ejecting unit supply through the power transmission cable. The power supply portion includes an AC/DC converter that converts the AC power to DC power and outputs the converted DC power to the power transmission cable.
    Type: Grant
    Filed: March 16, 2015
    Date of Patent: October 25, 2016
    Assignee: Seiko Epson Corporation
    Inventors: Kazunori Hiramatsu, Hiroaki Sakai
  • Patent number: 9475281
    Abstract: A method of reducing and/or preventing the accumulation of concentrated ink at an ejection point of a printhead of an electrostatic inkjet printer when ink is not being ejected at the ejection point, the method comprising reversing the electric field at the ejection point of the printhead during a non-printing phase of operation to reduce the concentration of ink at the ejection point.
    Type: Grant
    Filed: June 4, 2014
    Date of Patent: October 25, 2016
    Assignee: Tonejet Limited
    Inventors: Andrew John Clippingdale, Jr., Ammar Lecheheb, John Lawton Sharp
  • Patent number: 9475327
    Abstract: The transfer inkjet printer device includes an intermediate transfer body including an intermediate transfer surface capable of moving along a rotation route; an inkjet head used to discharge ink including toner particles onto the intermediate transfer surface at a first area in the rotation route in a state where the toner particles are charged, so as to form an intermediate image composed of an ink layer on the intermediate transfer surface; a pressure device used to press the ink layer of the intermediate image on the intermediate transfer surface, onto a surface of a recording medium at a second area in the rotation route; and an electric field application device used to electrophorese the charged toner particles in the ink layer of the intermediate image toward the recording medium at the second area.
    Type: Grant
    Filed: February 3, 2014
    Date of Patent: October 25, 2016
    Assignee: Miyakoshi Printing Machinery Co., Ltd.
    Inventors: Hideo Izawa, Takao Namiki, Junichi Setoyama