Patents Examined by Mark K. Zimmerman
  • Patent number: 8687244
    Abstract: In a case where it is determined after reading an original that an abnormal pixel is included in image data generated by reading the original, after the original is reversed by a reversing unit for re-reading of the original by a reading unit, the original is conveyed to a reading position of the reading unit and image data generated by the re-reading of the reading unit is corrected.
    Type: Grant
    Filed: July 5, 2011
    Date of Patent: April 1, 2014
    Assignee: Canon Kabushiki Kaisha
    Inventor: Kota Kato
  • Patent number: 8675247
    Abstract: There is provided an image file creation device including: an obtaining section that obtains image data forming a color image, conversion conditions for converting the image data into color data of a device-independent color space, and basic viewing conditions for viewing the color image; an input section that inputs target viewing conditions for viewing a formed image that is formed by using the image data; and a creation section that creates an image file containing a main data region for storing the image data, the conversion conditions and the basic viewing conditions, and a sub-data region for storing the target viewing conditions.
    Type: Grant
    Filed: April 15, 2008
    Date of Patent: March 18, 2014
    Assignee: Fuji Xerox Co., Ltd.
    Inventors: Akhiro Ito, Ryosuke Higashikata, Yasunari Kishimoto, Yasuki Yamauchi, Noriko Hasegawa, Hidetoshi Kawashima, Kiyoshi Une, Toshihiro Iwafuchi, Jungo Harigai
  • Patent number: 8670163
    Abstract: An image reader includes an original transport device to transport an original, and an image reading device including multiple image sensor arrays having image reading areas staggered relative to the transport direction of the original in such a manner that the multiple image sensor arrays are offset at least partially, in the main scanning direction of the original with a predetermined gap therebetween in the transport direction. There is at least one original transport speed detector to detect the transport speed of the original transported by the original transport device, a storing device to store a reference delay time period which is between when the image sensor arrays on the upstream side read a predetermined position relative to the transport direction and when the image sensor arrays on the downstream side read the predetermined position. Further, there is a misalignment amount calculator, and an image synthesizer to synthesize an image read by the image sensor arrays.
    Type: Grant
    Filed: May 25, 2011
    Date of Patent: March 11, 2014
    Assignee: Ricoh Company, Ltd.
    Inventor: Hiroshi Takahashi
  • Patent number: 8665462
    Abstract: Disclosed is a printer driver which acquires a file in which a printing condition has been stored, creates a print job based on the file, and instructs printing. The driver includes a first function which reads out the printing condition stored in the file, a second function which determines whether the file has been acquired from an external apparatus, and a third function which, (1) when it has been determined that the file has been acquired from an external apparatus, (1-1) checks with a user whether to change the printing condition, (1-2) displays a screen for setting the printing condition, or (1-3) sets a default printing condition in the print job, and (2) when it has been determined that the file has not been acquired from an external apparatus, sets in the print job, the printing condition stored in the file as the printing condition for the file.
    Type: Grant
    Filed: December 22, 2011
    Date of Patent: March 4, 2014
    Assignee: Konica Minolta Business Technologies, Inc.
    Inventor: Hiroshi Ohashi
  • Patent number: 8665476
    Abstract: Systems and methods are provided for including sheet images of pre-printed inserts in a print preview for a print job. The system is operable to receive a print job, to receive a request for a print preview of the print job, and to rasterize logical pages of the print job to generate sheet images. The system is further operable to identify inserts to be integrated with printed versions of the sheet images of the logical pages, and to include sheet images of the inserts with the sheet images of the logical pages for the print preview.
    Type: Grant
    Filed: November 30, 2011
    Date of Patent: March 4, 2014
    Assignee: Ricoh Production Print Solutions LLC
    Inventors: Stephen G. Price, Randell Rivadeneira, David E. Stone
  • Patent number: 8654409
    Abstract: An image scanning apparatus includes: an image scanning unit that includes plural light emitting elements and a light receiving portion receiving light emitted from the light emitting elements and reflected on a document and scans an image on the document; a light quantity information acquiring unit that acquires light quantity information on the quantity of light received by the light receiving portion while causing the light emitting elements to irradiate a reference member with light; a correction unit that corrects the scanned image, based on the light quantity information; and an abnormality detecting unit that detects abnormality of the light emitting elements. If the abnormality detecting unit detects the abnormality, the light quantity information acquiring unit acquires new light quantity information while causing the light emitting elements to irradiate the reference member with light and the correction unit corrects the scanned image, based on the new light quantity information.
    Type: Grant
    Filed: February 17, 2011
    Date of Patent: February 18, 2014
    Assignee: Fuji Xerox Co., Ltd.
    Inventor: Kosuke Shimizu
  • Patent number: 8643906
    Abstract: The present invention suppresses data processing load and processing time when generating density data for the same color that corresponds to a plurality of printing scans (or plurality of printing element groups) of a printing head and printing medium. In order to accomplish this, input image data is converted to a plurality of density data by referencing a three-dimensional lookup table that performs one-to-one correlation of input image data with a plurality of density data that corresponds to a plurality of relative movements (or plurality of printing element groups). By doing so, it is possible to perform a process of generating density data (CMYK) that corresponds to a plurality of relative movements (or plurality of printing element groups) from input image data at once, and thus it is possible to suppress an increase in data processing load and processing time.
    Type: Grant
    Filed: December 13, 2010
    Date of Patent: February 4, 2014
    Assignee: Canon Kabushiki Kaisha
    Inventors: Mitsuhiro Ono, Akitoshi Yamada, Rie Kajihara, Tomokazu Ishikawa, Yuji Konno, Hitoshi Nishikori, Norihiro Kawatoko, Yutaka Kano
  • Patent number: 8638847
    Abstract: An encoder comprising an input for inputting video signal to be encoded to form an encoded video signal comprising pictures of at least a first coded video sequence and a second coded video sequence, a hypothetical decoder for hypothetically decoding encoded video signal, an encoded picture buffer, and a decoded picture buffer, and a definer for defining a parameter indicative of the temporal difference between the last picture of the first coded video sequence and the first picture of the second coded video sequence in output/display order.
    Type: Grant
    Filed: December 5, 2005
    Date of Patent: January 28, 2014
    Assignee: Nokia Corporation
    Inventor: Ye-Kui Wang
  • Patent number: 8427689
    Abstract: Techniques are disclosed for performing processing, such as striping, staggering, and stitching, on print data prior to printing by a multi-head printer. Subsets of the print data may be stored in multiple stages of buffers and processed in parallel to increase processing efficiency. Print data representing digital photographs may be processed sufficiently rapidly to enable continuous printing of digital photographs at high speeds. Parameters of the system, such as print buffer size and interrupt frequency, may be varied in response to design requirements such as overall system cost.
    Type: Grant
    Filed: September 14, 2011
    Date of Patent: April 23, 2013
    Assignee: Zink Imaging, LLC
    Inventor: Anish N. Puri
  • Patent number: 8405840
    Abstract: A method for minimizing re-imaging procedures for an imaging device is disclosed. A first set of imaging instructions for a hard copy of a document is received at an imaging device. The hard copy of the document is scanned in accordance with the first set of imaging instructions to create image data. The image data is retained in memory at an identified location until a purging event occurs. A second set of imaging instructions is received at the imaging device. It is then determined whether the hard copy of the document has been removed from the processing path of the imaging device since the scanning occurred using at least one sensor. If the hard copy of the document has not been removed, imaging output is produced in accordance with the second set of instructions using the image data without rescanning a hard copy of the document.
    Type: Grant
    Filed: December 18, 2008
    Date of Patent: March 26, 2013
    Assignee: Sharp Laboratories of America, Inc.
    Inventor: Andrew Rodney Ferlitsch
  • Patent number: 8390840
    Abstract: A system including an authentication unit and an authentication-based print-job generation unit including: a job acquisition module that acquires a print-job in a first format processable by a first printing device and a print-job in a second format processable by a second printing device; a module that acquires printing person identification information; and a module that generates an authentication-based print-job by adding the acquired printing person identification information to the acquired print-job, and outputs it to the authentication unit.
    Type: Grant
    Filed: September 11, 2006
    Date of Patent: March 5, 2013
    Assignee: Seiko Epson Corporation
    Inventors: Senichi Mokuya, Naruhide Kitada, Yusuke Takahashi
  • Patent number: 8314952
    Abstract: A print record management device includes a comparison unit that compares print image data produced on the basis of stored document data with the stored document data, and a determination unit that determines, from a result of the comparison, which of the print image data and association data showing association with the stored document data is to be stored as record data for enabling reproduction of printing processing in relation to the print image data.
    Type: Grant
    Filed: December 15, 2006
    Date of Patent: November 20, 2012
    Assignee: Fuji Xerox Co., Ltd.
    Inventor: Mitsuhiko Ohta
  • Patent number: 8310713
    Abstract: The printer successively stores the objects contained in the PDF file as they are transmitted from the PC, and conducts the printing process for said specific page when it judges that all the objects necessary for displaying said page are stored. Also, when a memory overflow occurs, it successively prints out content objects contained in the constituent data of the PDF file stored in the RAM, while assigning identification names, and deletes the data for the content objects already printed out from the RAM so that additional constituent data of the PDF file can be received successively. It finally generates and prints out the table of contents based on the identification names of the content object and the information of the page object and the page list object. Thus, it is possible to form images directly receiving a document file such as a PDF file on a printer with a limited usable memory capacity.
    Type: Grant
    Filed: December 10, 2003
    Date of Patent: November 13, 2012
    Assignee: Konica Minolta Business Technologies, Inc.
    Inventors: Tadayuki Sugimoto, Masahiro Ozawa, Takenori Idehara
  • Patent number: 8289572
    Abstract: In summary, the present invention provides a method, apparatus and program product for calculating an estimate of the amount of toner coverage required for printing print data defined in a compressed data stream. The estimate is obtained with reduced processing by obtaining coverage data from a partially decompressed formed of the data stream and using this to obtain the coverage estimate, thus removing the need to do a full de-compression of the data stream. For example the coverage data is a count of toned pixels for at least one intensity level.
    Type: Grant
    Filed: September 22, 2005
    Date of Patent: October 16, 2012
    Assignee: Ricoh Production Print Solutions LLC
    Inventors: Larry M. Ernst, Nenad Rijavec
  • Patent number: 8274693
    Abstract: Input data in which fixed data and variable data are mixed is processed in a system in which a plate offset press for processing fixed data and a plateless digital press capable of processing variable data are connected. A number of pages of fixed data to be printed in succession by the plate offset press is acquired. When the acquired number of pages of fixed data to be printed in succession by the plate offset press does not exceed a number of pages of fixed data to be printed in succession in the input data, a first job is generated to assign, for the plate offset press, pages of fixed data in the input data. A second job is generated to assign, for the plateless digital press, the remaining input data obtained by excluding the fixed data assigned for the plate offset press from the input data.
    Type: Grant
    Filed: November 16, 2007
    Date of Patent: September 25, 2012
    Assignee: Canon Kabushiki Kaisha
    Inventor: Keita Oshima
  • Patent number: 8274719
    Abstract: A printing system is capable of displaying a preview of an image with a low resolution without causing degradation in performance and affinity for an operating system. When previewing is performed, preview printer information corresponding to the low resolution is set as printer information in a printer graphics driver by a print processor. The printer graphics driver produces a preview file by converting (rasterizing) an EMF spool file into low-resolution data. The resultant preview file is displayed as a print image on a display by a previewer.
    Type: Grant
    Filed: November 22, 2002
    Date of Patent: September 25, 2012
    Assignee: Canon Kabushiki Kaisha
    Inventor: Yoshiaki Tomomatsu
  • Patent number: 8264712
    Abstract: Provided are a wireless printing system and method based on wireless Local Area Network (LAN). A method of requesting a wireless printing, includes: requesting a printer that exists in a wireless LAN to perform a print job; and communicating with the printer according to a standard of the wireless LAN in order to transmit data regarding the print job to the printer. The method provides wireless direct printing suitable for a wireless LAN environment.
    Type: Grant
    Filed: April 15, 2005
    Date of Patent: September 11, 2012
    Assignee: Samsung Electronics Co., Ltd.
    Inventors: Seok Ryu, Kwang-chul Lee, Eun-hee Rhim
  • Patent number: 8253968
    Abstract: This invention provides an image forming apparatus capable of preventing image omission caused by registration error correction, a control method therefor, and a program. Error amount information is acquired which is stored in a storage medium and represents the error amount of the scanning line of exposure light in the exposure scanning direction on an image carrier. The image data is modified on the basis of the acquired error amount information. A masked area for restricting the output position of an image visualized on the printing medium is modified on the basis of the modification amount of the modified image data.
    Type: Grant
    Filed: October 31, 2006
    Date of Patent: August 28, 2012
    Assignee: Canon Kabushiki Kaisha
    Inventor: Atsushi Otani
  • Patent number: 8233194
    Abstract: One aspect of the method/apparatus finds, for each input-image pixel, an “offset weighted average” of neighboring-pixel interactions—and uses the averages to make a final image. Another aspect assumes a value for each pixel, to use in a final rendered image form—and, at each in a series of approximations, determines whether to change the value, and finds a probabilistic weight to help determine. Yet another finds, for each pixel, a numerical representation of neighboring-pixel interactions—and establishes a distance cutoff for use in defining “neighbor”, and uses the representation to decide whether to change color values. Still another finds a desired or ideal number of print passes, and adapts the number of passes actually used to the found number. Another combines halftoning and printmasking into one procedure and prints images prepared thereby. Another integrates halftoning and image filtering, to obtain esthetic visual effects, into one procedure—and prints images thus prepared.
    Type: Grant
    Filed: January 26, 2005
    Date of Patent: July 31, 2012
    Assignee: Hewlett-Packard Development Company, L.P.
    Inventors: Alejandro Manuel de Pena, Santiago Garcia Reyero, Joan Manuel Garcia
  • Patent number: 8233163
    Abstract: An image forming apparatus including: an image processing section which creates print data to be outputted out of complex original document data including both character data and diagram data in a single page of data; and an image forming section which outputs the created print data onto a sheet, wherein the image processing section determines divided character data and divided diagram data in the complex original document data, to be outputted; creates character print data by enlarging the divided character data and attaching position information in the complex original document data; creates diagram print data by enlarging the divided diagram data and attaching position information in the complex original document data; and creates position information attached print data in which the position information of the divided character data and the divided diagram data are attached to the complex original document data.
    Type: Grant
    Filed: August 21, 2008
    Date of Patent: July 31, 2012
    Assignee: Konica Minolta Business Technologies, Inc.
    Inventor: Shuichi Ito