Patents Examined by Jeffrey C Morgan
  • Patent number: 9174435
    Abstract: A liquid ejecting device includes a driving waveform signal generating circuit that generates a driving waveform signal, a modulation circuit that performs pulse modulation on the driving waveform signal to generate a modulation signal, a digital power amplifier that amplifies power of the modulation signal to generate a power amplification modulation signal in the form of a pulse wave, a filter that smoothes the power amplification modulation signal in the pulse wave to generate the driving signal, a connection cable that connects the filter to the capacitive load and is provided such that at least one of the filter and the capacitive load is detachable, a connection line information acquiring unit that acquires connection line information associated with the connection cable, and a frequency changing unit that changes a frequency when the modulation circuit performs the pulse modulation on the driving waveform signal, on the basis of the connection line.
    Type: Grant
    Filed: August 9, 2012
    Date of Patent: November 3, 2015
    Assignee: SEIKO EPSON CORPORATION
    Inventors: Hiroyuki Yoshino, Kunio Tabata, Atsushi Oshima, Noritaka Ide
  • Patent number: 9162478
    Abstract: An image recording apparatus, including: a first head for ejecting first liquid; a second head for ejecting second liquid; a second-liquid test-pattern recording command section configured to command recording of a test pattern of the second liquid on the recording medium; and an output controller configured to output recording data to the first head and/or the second head. When the second-liquid test-pattern recording command section does not command the recording of the test pattern of the second liquid, the output controller outputs recording data representative of an image to be recorded, to the first head and the second head. When the second-liquid test-pattern recording command section commands the recording of the test pattern of the second liquid, the output controller outputs the recording data representative of the test pattern of the second liquid, not to the first head but to the second head.
    Type: Grant
    Filed: August 2, 2012
    Date of Patent: October 20, 2015
    Assignee: BROTHER KOGYO KABUSHIKI KAISHA
    Inventor: Katsuaki Suzuki
  • Patent number: 9156269
    Abstract: An inkjet printer includes a cleaning unit to be brought into contact with a head lower surface of an ejection head, and a unit movement mechanism for moving the cleaning unit. The cleaning unit includes a base part, a cleaning liquid ejecting part protruding above the base part, and a pair of positioning parts. The positioning parts are brought into contact with a block lower surface of a head fixation block on opposite sides of the cleaning liquid ejecting part to keep an under-head gap for holding the cleaning liquid between the cleaning liquid ejecting part and the head lower surface. Since the positioning parts are spaced from the cleaning liquid ejecting part, it is possible to prevent the cleaning liquid that has spread from the under-head gap to the surrounding area from adhering to the block lower surface via the positioning parts.
    Type: Grant
    Filed: March 12, 2014
    Date of Patent: October 13, 2015
    Assignee: SCREEN HOLDINGS CO., LTD.
    Inventors: Takashi Kuroda, Tamio Fukui
  • Patent number: 9144996
    Abstract: A controlling device may perform an image process on specific image data so as to generate processed image data, supply the processed image data to the print performing unit and perform, in order to compensate variability of discharging amount of ink droplets discharged from the plurality of nozzles, a specific process on a target pixel within target image data using correction data for a target nozzle which forms a dot at a position on a print medium corresponding to the target pixel. The correction data may be data acquired using two or more sets of characteristic data corresponding to two or more nozzles of the plurality of nozzles. The two or more nozzles may include the target nozzle and a specific nozzle. The specific nozzle may be to form a raster near a target raster formed on the print medium by the target nozzle.
    Type: Grant
    Filed: December 20, 2010
    Date of Patent: September 29, 2015
    Assignee: BROTHER KOGYO KABUSHIKI KAISHA
    Inventors: Yasunari Yoshida, Shintaro Izoe
  • Patent number: 9144995
    Abstract: An image forming apparatus configured to form a plurality of dots on a recording medium by ejecting ink droplets includes: a recording head configured to eject the ink droplets of a plurality of colors including similar colors, which are colors of which densities or hues are equal to each other; a transporting unit configured to relatively move the recording head and the recording medium; a head driving circuit configured to perform a driving control of the recording head based on a control signal; and an image processing unit configured to convert an input image signal into a control signal to be supplied to the head driving circuit in a manner so that the dots of the similar colors are formed to be overlapped at a same position at a lower rate in a low density gradation range and at a higher rate in a high density gradation range.
    Type: Grant
    Filed: August 16, 2013
    Date of Patent: September 29, 2015
    Assignee: FUJIFILM CORPORATION
    Inventors: Tomohiro Mizuno, Tsuyoshi Matsumoto
  • Patent number: 9120344
    Abstract: Gas bearing systems, print gap control systems, and methods of print gap control are provided. The gas bearing systems can accommodate one or more print module packages. The systems and methods can be used for inkjet and/or thermal printing applications such as manufacturing organic light emitting devices (OLEDs). Gas bearing systems can employ one or more of pressurized gas and vacuum. For oxygen-sensitive applications, an inert gas, such as nitrogen gas, can be employed as the pressurized gas. Fluid channels and apertures of the gas bearing systems can be varied in terms of size and relative position to one another. Fluid channels and apertures can be grouped and paired with one or more manifolds and ultimately a pressurized gas and/or vacuum source.
    Type: Grant
    Filed: August 8, 2012
    Date of Patent: September 1, 2015
    Assignee: Kateeva, Inc.
    Inventors: Robert B. Lowrance, Michael Miller, Sass Somekh, Conor F. Madigan, Eliyahu Vronsky, Manoocher Birang
  • Patent number: 9120336
    Abstract: When it is decided that the PE sensor installed upstream of the conveying roller has detected paper, the motor driving the recovery operation is stopped. This prevents paper jamming that may be caused by the reverse rotation of the motor during the recovery operation. That is, when print paper happens to remain on a conveying path for some reason, at a position where it can be driven simultaneously by both of the intermediate and the conveying rollers, the activation of the recovery operation, which is powered by the same motor that drives these rollers, can result in paper jamming because the recovery operation causes the conveying roller to rotate in a direction reverse to that of the intermediate roller. The paper jamming can, however, be prevented by stopping the conveying of the paper before it reaches a position where it is driven by the two rollers at the same time.
    Type: Grant
    Filed: August 1, 2012
    Date of Patent: September 1, 2015
    Assignee: CANON KABUSHIKI KAISHA
    Inventor: Yuki Sawai
  • Patent number: 9120319
    Abstract: A liquid discharge head includes nozzles configured to discharge liquid droplets; individual flow paths to which the nozzles are connected; a liquid injection unit connected to the individual flow paths; a common liquid room configured to supply liquid to the individual flow paths; and a filter unit configured to filter the liquid. The filter unit is provided between the common liquid room and the liquid injection unit. The filter unit includes a reinforcement area for dividing the filter unit into filter areas each corresponding to two or more of the individual flow paths. A partition wall is provided corresponding to the reinforcement area of the filter unit, on the liquid injection unit side. A width in a nozzle arrangement direction of the partition wall is wider than a width in the nozzle arrangement direction of the reinforcement area.
    Type: Grant
    Filed: September 9, 2013
    Date of Patent: September 1, 2015
    Assignee: RICOH COMPANY, LTD.
    Inventor: Ryohta Yoneta
  • Patent number: 9114605
    Abstract: A drive device includes a circuit for selecting an arbitrary voltage among a plurality of kinds of voltages required for generating a drive signal for variably controlling potential applied to electrodes of channels. In the drive device, respective drive voltage input terminals and output terminals are respectively connected by a low-impedance connecting circuit which has low internal resistance, and a selected voltage input terminal and the output terminals are connected by a high-impedance connecting circuit which has high internal resistance. The drive device controls a drive waveform transition pattern of a drive signal such that the drive signal is output via the high-impedance connecting circuit while the potential applied to the respective electrode simultaneously changes in the same direction out of a positive direction and a negative direction and that the drive signal is output via the low-impedance connecting circuit in the other cases.
    Type: Grant
    Filed: August 22, 2013
    Date of Patent: August 25, 2015
    Assignee: Toshiba Tec Kabushiki Kaisha
    Inventors: Teruyuki Hiyoshi, Noboru Nitta, Mamoru Kimura, Shunichi Ono
  • Patent number: 9102169
    Abstract: An image forming apparatus includes a control unit arranged to control an image forming unit so as to form images based on image information and to form maintenance images for maintaining the image forming unit. The control unit is arranged to control the image forming unit so as to form images on the second side of the sheet after forming images on the first side of the sheet, and so as to form the maintenance images on the second side at positions such that the maintenance images do not overlap with the images based on the image information formed on the first side.
    Type: Grant
    Filed: November 30, 2010
    Date of Patent: August 11, 2015
    Assignee: Canon Kabushiki Kaisha
    Inventor: Masashi Kurihara
  • Patent number: 9090086
    Abstract: In an overlapping head including a plurality of recording head chips overlapped to each other, a color shift can occur between a color recorded by an overlapping region and a color recorded by a non-overlapping region, which cannot be corrected by a density correction using head shading or the like. To correct such a color shift, a test pattern is recorded by the overlapping region and the non-overlapping region and colors of the recorded test pattern are measured. Color correction data to be used in correction of colors of an image to be recorded is generated based on a result of the measurement of the colors.
    Type: Grant
    Filed: December 10, 2010
    Date of Patent: July 28, 2015
    Assignee: Canon Kabushiki Kaisha
    Inventors: Takashi Nakamura, Akitoshi Yamada, Okinori Tsuchiya, Akihiko Nakatani, Mitsuhiro Ono, Ayumi Sano, Takashi Fujita, Tomokazu Ishikawa, Hidetsugu Kagawa, Yugo Mochizuki, Fumihiro Goto, Fumitaka Goto
  • Patent number: 9073373
    Abstract: A drive signal includes a first drive signal and a second drive signal. The first drive signal includes a prior pulse section including a first contraction element and a discharging pulse section including a first expansion element pulling in a meniscus and the second contraction element discharging a droplet of liquid from the nozzle orifice. The second drive signal includes the discharging pulse section and a vibration control pulse section including a second expansion element controlling a residual vibration of the meniscus. A piezoelectric element is driven with the first drive signal when viscosity of the liquid is equal to or more than a first set value and is driven with the second drive signal when the viscosity is equal to or less than a second set value.
    Type: Grant
    Filed: July 31, 2012
    Date of Patent: July 7, 2015
    Assignee: Seiko Epson Corporation
    Inventors: Koji Takano, Naoki Yonekubo, Kinya Ozawa
  • Patent number: 9056476
    Abstract: Provided is a liquid ejecting apparatus including a liquid ejecting head that ejects liquid through nozzle openings, and a wiper that sweeps a liquid ejection surface side of the liquid ejecting head, in which the liquid ejecting head includes a nozzle plate having the liquid ejection surface and a protection member that protrudes further on a liquid discharging side than the nozzle plate, and the wiper sweeps a surface of the protection member, which is an exterior surface of the protection member intended to be swept, toward the nozzle plate side, and then the wiper sweeps the liquid ejection surface so that the wiper moves away from the surface of the protection member and comes into contact with a portion between the nozzle openings on the nozzle plate and an end portion of the nozzle plate, which is located on an opposite side in a sweeping direction.
    Type: Grant
    Filed: March 12, 2014
    Date of Patent: June 16, 2015
    Assignee: Seiko Epson Corporation
    Inventors: Hajime Nakao, Katsumi Enomoto, Shunsuke Watanabe
  • Patent number: 9055252
    Abstract: Provided is an image processing apparatus that can accurately and efficiently reduce color unevenness that occurs in a color image, which is formed by color mixture of a plurality of different types of inks, due to a variation in ejection characteristic among nozzles. The inks are respectively ejected from the nozzle arrays to print patches; regions where color correction for test color images should be performed are specified; a different types of color correction processing for color signals corresponding to the color correction regions are performed to print color correction patches; a color correction patch to be used is selected; on the basis of selected color correction processing, a table parameter corresponding to a nozzle is formed; when the plurality of color correction patches are formed, only correction candidate values having larger color differences than a predetermined threshold value in a uniform color space are generated for color signals.
    Type: Grant
    Filed: December 13, 2010
    Date of Patent: June 9, 2015
    Assignee: CANON KABUSHIKI KAISHA
    Inventors: Nobutaka Miyake, Ryosuke Iguchi, Tohru Ikeda, Akitoshi Yamada, Mitsuhiro Ono, Fumitaka Goto, Hidetsugu Kagawa, Tomokazu Ishikawa, Junichi Nakagawa, Senichi Saito
  • Patent number: 9039113
    Abstract: There is provided a printing apparatus that includes a head unit which can form a plurality of dots of different sizes including a first dot and a second dot. The printing apparatus includes: a first print mode having a plurality of gradation reproduction regions including a first gradation reproduction region of a first print mode and a second gradation reproduction region of the first print mode; and a second print mode having a plurality of gradation reproduction regions including a first gradation reproduction region of a second print mode and a second gradation reproduction region of the second print mode. In the printing apparatus, a print speed in the first print mode is lower than a print speed in the second print mode, and the first gradation reproduction region of the first print mode is larger than the first gradation reproduction region of the second print mode.
    Type: Grant
    Filed: March 6, 2014
    Date of Patent: May 26, 2015
    Assignee: Seiko Epson Corporation
    Inventor: Tatsuo Furuta
  • Patent number: 9022510
    Abstract: A recording apparatus includes a transporting device that transports a recording medium, a recording head that ejects fluid to the recording medium, a first supporting surface that supports the recording medium at a position opposed to the recording head, a heating device that has a second supporting surface that supports the recording medium at an upstream side of a transport direction more than the recording head along with heating the recording medium on the second supporting surface, a floating detection device that detects floating of the recording medium with respect to at least one of the first supporting surface and the second supporting surface, and a control device that controls a heating state of the recording medium on the second supporting surface, based on the detection result of the floating detection device.
    Type: Grant
    Filed: August 3, 2012
    Date of Patent: May 5, 2015
    Assignee: Seiko Epson Corporation
    Inventors: Tsuneyuki Sasaki, Akira Ishikawa
  • Patent number: 9022511
    Abstract: An image recording apparatus includes a transport unit which transports a medium with a joint portion along a transport path, a head unit which performs recording of a printing image on both the joint portion and a non-joint portion by ejecting ink onto the medium, a heating unit which dries liquid forming the printing image by heating a portion of the medium located at a heating region on the transport path, a detection unit which detects the joint portion, and a controller which controls transporting of the medium by the transport unit so that a heating time of the joint portion in the heating region becomes longer than a heating time of the non-joint portion in the heating region on the basis of a detection signal from the detection unit.
    Type: Grant
    Filed: August 10, 2012
    Date of Patent: May 5, 2015
    Assignee: Seiko Epson Corporation
    Inventor: Seigo Mizutani
  • Patent number: 9022499
    Abstract: The nozzle failure determination result of discharge failure detection does not consider the heater state of a nozzle, so even a nozzle failure caused by nozzle clogging or the like is determined as a failure. The heater state of an abnormal nozzle can be determined only after driving once, causing a nozzle to be damaged unwantedly. This invention has been made to solve this problem. Whether a nozzle failure has occurred is determined based on the results of both a discharge failure detection operation and heater resistance measurement operation. Detection can be achieved quickly by performing heater resistance measurement during the quiescent period in the discharge failure detection operation. When the discharge failure detection operation is executed after heater resistance measurement, driving of an abnormal nozzle and an unwanted damage to a nozzle can be prevented.
    Type: Grant
    Filed: March 20, 2012
    Date of Patent: May 5, 2015
    Assignee: Canon Kabushiki Kaisha
    Inventor: Kazushi Fujimoto
  • Patent number: 8998362
    Abstract: A liquid ejection apparatus comprises a head, a conveyor, an image dot controller, a determiner and a non-image dot controller. The determiner determines whether an image dot non-forming period is equal to or longer than a predetermined time period. The non-image dot controller controls the head so that each ejection opening, whose image dot non-forming period is equal to or longer than the predetermined time period, ejects liquid once within a non-image dot forming period in the image dot non-forming period, to form on a recording medium a non-image dot, the non-image dot forming period being a period from a third time point which is after the first time point to a second time point which is the predetermined time period after the first time point, and that a plurality of the non-image dots structured by the liquid ejected from the ejection openings are scattered in a conveyance direction.
    Type: Grant
    Filed: January 31, 2012
    Date of Patent: April 7, 2015
    Assignee: Brother Kogyo Kabushiki Kaisha
    Inventor: Yuichi Ito
  • Patent number: 8998361
    Abstract: A recording apparatus is provided, including a recording head, a transport mechanism which has an adjusting mechanism configured to adjust a spacing distance between recording media upstream from the recording head, a discharge control unit configured to control the recording head so that a liquid is discharged when discharge ports face the recording medium and configured to control the recording head so that at least one of discharge flushing and non-discharge flushing is performed when the discharge ports are positioned between the two recording media, and a measuring mechanism which is arranged upstream from the recording head to measure the spacing distance between the recording media. The adjusting mechanism is configured to adjust the next spacing distance between the recording media depending on the spacing distance between the recording media measured by the measuring mechanism.
    Type: Grant
    Filed: November 30, 2011
    Date of Patent: April 7, 2015
    Assignee: Brother Kogyo Kabushiki Kaisha
    Inventor: Tomoyasu Yabuki