Patents Examined by Scott A Richmond
  • Patent number: 11577527
    Abstract: A print apparatus is disclosed. In some examples, the print apparatus comprises a print head to deposit print agent onto a substrate; a detector to detect a fiducial; a first light source to back-illuminate the substrate, such that light from the first light source is to be detected by the detector through the substrate; and processing apparatus.
    Type: Grant
    Filed: March 11, 2019
    Date of Patent: February 14, 2023
    Assignee: HEWLETT-PACKARD DEVELOPMENT COMPANY, L.P.
    Inventors: Li Qian, Xavier Domingo Reguant, Secundino Vicente Vicente
  • Patent number: 11577531
    Abstract: A printing device includes: a motor; a rotary body driven by the motor to rotate; a movable blade driven by rotation of the rotary body to cut a printing tape; a gear mechanism provided on a power transmission path from the motor to the movable blade; a first detector outputting a first signal based on a rotated position of the rotary body; a second detector outputting a second signal based on the rotated position, and a controller performing positioning the rotary body to a predetermined reference rotated position. The positioning includes: starting rotating the rotary body in one direction on the basis of the first signal at the time of starting the positioning; halting the rotation in the one direction of the rotary body on the basis of the second signal; and rotating the rotary body in the opposite direction for a prescribed time period after the halting is completed.
    Type: Grant
    Filed: March 23, 2021
    Date of Patent: February 14, 2023
    Assignee: BROTHER KOGYO KABUSHIKI KAISHA
    Inventors: Masashi Iwamoto, Feng Zhu
  • Patent number: 11571903
    Abstract: There is provided a liquid discharge apparatus including: a head, a fixing device and a mist collector configured to collect a mist of a liquid. The mist collector and the fixing device are arranged side by side in this order in a first direction. The mist collector is provided with an air channel having a suction port and an exhaust port. The air channel has: a first part and a second part connected to an other end of the first part. The exhaust port is opened, in the second part, toward any one of directions which are: a direction including a direction opposite to the first direction as a directional component thereof, a third direction orthogonal to the first direction and a second direction, and a direction opposite to the third direction.
    Type: Grant
    Filed: June 28, 2021
    Date of Patent: February 7, 2023
    Assignee: Brother Kogyo Kabushiki Kaisha
    Inventors: Akihiro Kobayashi, Kengo Takeda, Takahiro Nishimoto
  • Patent number: 11571887
    Abstract: A system comprises a printhead including a nozzle, a temperature sensor and a processor. The temperature sensor detects the temperature of a location of a print surface upon firing the nozzle to eject a drop of printing fluid to the location of the print surface. The processor determines whether the nozzle ejected the drop properly using the detected temperature.
    Type: Grant
    Filed: August 30, 2018
    Date of Patent: February 7, 2023
    Assignee: HEWLETT-PACKARD DEVELOPMENT COMPANY, L.P.
    Inventors: Ricard Silvestre Rivero, Jordi Hernandez Creus, Mauricio Seras Franzoso
  • Patent number: 11565538
    Abstract: A printer includes a printing unit, a conveying unit, a cutting unit, a casing and a controller. The controller is configured to perform receiving a setting for a discharge mode of a printed medium piece. The controller is configured to further perform, in a case where the discharge mode is currently set to a forcible discharge mode, forcibly discharging the printed medium piece from the casing through the discharging opening, a leading edge of a continuous printing medium being conveyed by a first feed amount in the conveying direction by driving the conveying unit such that the printed medium piece is pushed by the leading edge of the continuous printing medium. The controller is configured to further perform, in a case where the discharge mode is currently set to a non-forcible discharge mode, non-forcibly discharging the printed medium piece from the casing.
    Type: Grant
    Filed: November 23, 2021
    Date of Patent: January 31, 2023
    Assignee: BROTHER KOGYO KABUSHIKI KAISHA
    Inventors: Ryuichi Kanda, Kentaro Murayama
  • Patent number: 11565542
    Abstract: A printing device includes: a casing having a cover configured to open and close; an operation unit provided in the casing, the operation unit not being exposed outside the casing when the cover is closed, the operation unit being exposed outside the casing when the cover is open; and a holding unit whose state switches to one of a hold state configured to hold an information processing device and a release state configured to release the information processing device, in response to an operation accepted by the operation unit.
    Type: Grant
    Filed: June 23, 2021
    Date of Patent: January 31, 2023
    Assignee: SEIKO EPSON CORPORATION
    Inventor: Tetsugo Ishida
  • Patent number: 11559984
    Abstract: A print apparatus is disclosed. The print apparatus comprises a plurality of printing elements; and a temperature control unit, controllable by processing circuitry, to increase an operating temperature of a first printing element in the plurality of printing elements by a defined amount relative to an operating temperature of a second printing element in the plurality of printing elements. A method and a machine-readable medium are also disclosed.
    Type: Grant
    Filed: July 13, 2018
    Date of Patent: January 24, 2023
    Assignee: HEWLETT-PACKARD DEVELOPMENT COMPANY, L.P.
    Inventors: Eduardo Amela Conesa, Li Qian, Marian Dinares Argemi
  • Patent number: 11554598
    Abstract: An inkjet printer capable of improving uniformity of the quality of an image printed on a recording medium is provided and includes: a table formed with a support surface that supports a recording medium; an inkjet head formed with a nozzle that ejects ink; a Y-bar that supports the inkjet head to be movable in a main scanning direction; two lifting mechanisms capable of changing a Y-bar tilt serving as a tilt of the Y-bar with respect to the support surface; a head gap sensor that detects a head gap, which is a distance from the recording medium to the nozzle of the inkjet head; and a tilt adjustment portion that adjusts the Y-bar tilt by the two lifting mechanisms to a tilt that reduces variations of the head gaps detected by the head gap sensor at each of multiple positions in the main scanning direction.
    Type: Grant
    Filed: September 16, 2020
    Date of Patent: January 17, 2023
    Assignee: MIMAKI ENGINEERING CO., LTD.
    Inventor: Sho Koshiba
  • Patent number: 11548298
    Abstract: A recording device includes a recording unit, a support unit, a roller pair downstream of the recording unit and configured to transport the medium, a plurality of regulating members disposed between the recording unit and the roller pair and configured to touch the medium from above, and an inversion path configured to invert front-to-back the medium on which recording was performed and to merge upstream of the recording unit, where a nip point of the roller pair is positioned higher than the support face, a bottom end of each regulating member is disposed at a position for pushing the medium down lower than the nip point of the roller pair and of the plurality of regulating members, the regulating members disposed at both end portion sides in the width direction apply less load on the medium than the regulating member disposed toward a center in the width direction.
    Type: Grant
    Filed: September 13, 2021
    Date of Patent: January 10, 2023
    Assignee: Seiko Epson Corporation
    Inventor: Keisuke Kitahara
  • Patent number: 11548299
    Abstract: Included are a printing unit configured to perform printing on a medium (P) being transported, a first nipping roller configured to nip the medium at a first nipping position downstream of the printing unit in a transport direction in which the medium is transported, a second nipping roller configured to nip the medium at a second nipping position upstream of the printing unit, and a control unit. During duplex printing for outputting a printed object being the medium after performing printing on a first surface and a second surface, the control unit causes the printing unit to start printing on the first surface of the medium (P) in a nipped state in which the medium is nipped by the first nipping roller and the second nipping roller, and to start printing on the second surface on the medium in the nipped state after printing on the first surface.
    Type: Grant
    Filed: March 29, 2021
    Date of Patent: January 10, 2023
    Assignee: Seiko Epson Corporation
    Inventor: Yasushi Yajima
  • Patent number: 11535470
    Abstract: Provided is a transport device including a feeding unit on which a roll-type medium is set and which feeds the medium by rotating the medium, and an endless transport belt that transports the medium in a transport direction by supporting the medium fed out from the feeding unit and rotating. When seen from a support direction in which the transport belt supports the medium, the feeding unit is configured to change the posture thereof so as to incline a rotating shaft of the medium with respect to a width direction that is a direction intersecting the transport direction.
    Type: Grant
    Filed: January 24, 2020
    Date of Patent: December 27, 2022
    Assignee: Seiko Epson Corporation
    Inventors: Manabu Suzuki, Tsutomu Sasaki
  • Patent number: 11535043
    Abstract: An image print apparatus capable of printing multiple pages on a rolled printing medium includes a conveyance unit that conveys the printing medium, a printing unit that prints on the printing medium, and a cutting unit that cuts out the printing medium. The conveyance unit performs a first conveyance operation to convey the printing medium by a predetermined length in a direction to discharge the printing medium and to stop the conveyance, which is carried out after completion of printing of one page by the printing unit and before settlement of a print start position of a next page, and a second conveyance operation including an operation to convey the printing medium in the direction to discharge until the print start position reaches a position of the printing unit, which is carried out after settlement of the print start position of the next page.
    Type: Grant
    Filed: February 23, 2021
    Date of Patent: December 27, 2022
    Assignee: Canon Kabushiki Kaisha
    Inventor: Erika Oishi
  • Patent number: 11524507
    Abstract: In some embodiments, a direct-to-garment personalization system for personalizing an article includes a direct-to-garment printer configured to print a graphic onto the article; a hanger for supporting the article; a storage area containing the article supported on the hanger; and a transfer system configured to remove the article from the hanger in the storage area and move the article to the direct-to-garment printer. The hanger includes a first arm coupled to a second arm, wherein the arms are collapsible to a smaller size in response to a pull force; and a hook coupled to at least one of the first and second arms.
    Type: Grant
    Filed: April 11, 2022
    Date of Patent: December 13, 2022
    Assignee: CreateMe Technologies LLC
    Inventors: Yoshikazu Hoshino, David Glen Barrett, Scott Timothy Alberstein, Gad Amit, Stanislav Moiseyenko, Yuri Viacheslav Litvinov
  • Patent number: 11518182
    Abstract: A cleaning device includes a cleaning unit, a movement mechanism, and a unit mounting portion. The cleaning unit includes a cleaning part having a contact surface brought into contact with a surface of a conveyance roller. The movement mechanism moves the cleaning unit between a cleaning position at which the cleaning part comes in contact with the conveyance roller, and a mounting and removing position at which the cleaning part is located below the conveyance roller in a separated manner and the cleaning unit is allowed to be mounted and removed on and from the apparatus body. The unit mounting portion houses the cleaning unit disposed at the mounting and removing position. The cleaning unit is configured such that the cleaning unit in a state of being housed in the unit mounting portion is mounted and removed, together with the processing unit, on and from the apparatus body.
    Type: Grant
    Filed: July 24, 2021
    Date of Patent: December 6, 2022
    Assignee: KYOCERA Document Solutions Inc.
    Inventors: Shinobu Ohata, Naoto Miyakoshi, Shunsuke Yamasaki, Hiroatsu Tamai, Yasuhiro Michishita, Takeshi Watanabe, Hiroki Sakane, Kenichi Satake, Masato Usui, Yuzuru Yuasa, Yusuke Tamekuni
  • Patent number: 11511551
    Abstract: An image forming apparatus contains an ink having a dynamic surface tension of from 30 to 50 mN/m at a life time of 15 msec at 25 degrees C., a container containing the ink and a head configured to discharge the ink to a fabric including a first fabric containing synthetic fiber in an amount of more than 50 percent by mass and a second fabric containing natural fiber in an amount of 50 percent by mass or greater, the head including a nozzle surface, wherein a first distance between positions of two consecutive droplets of the ink discharged from the head on the first fabric is shorter than a second distance between positions of two consecutive droplets of the ink discharged from the head on the second fabric.
    Type: Grant
    Filed: September 22, 2020
    Date of Patent: November 29, 2022
    Assignee: RICOH COMPANY, LTD.
    Inventors: Toshiyuki Kobashi, Satoyuki Sekiguchi, Taku Hatakeyama, Takashi Watanabe
  • Patent number: 11511315
    Abstract: A liquid ejection device includes: a liquid ejection unit with an ejection port surface provided with an ejection port from which liquid is ejected and configured to eject the liquid onto a substrate at an ejection position; an image capturing mechanism configured to face the ejection port surface of the liquid ejection unit and to capture an image of the ejection port surface at a maintenance position different from the ejection position; and a lighting unit configured to irradiate the ejection port surface at multiple incidence angles with respect to the ejection port surface in an operation of capturing an image of the ejection port surface by the image capturing mechanism.
    Type: Grant
    Filed: December 4, 2020
    Date of Patent: November 29, 2022
    Assignee: CANON KABUSHIKI KAISHA
    Inventor: Tomonobu Saku
  • Patent number: 11505288
    Abstract: A method is provided that includes acquiring positional information regarding a pallet being translated on a conveyance system with an encoding sensor disposed proximate to the conveyance system. The method also includes receiving, with at least one processor, the positional information from the encoding sensor. Further, the method includes determining timing information using the positional information. The timing information corresponds to when a substrate disposed on the pallet will be in a print zone of a print head. The method further includes controlling the print head to print on the substrate when the substrate is in the print zone and passing beneath the print head.
    Type: Grant
    Filed: June 23, 2021
    Date of Patent: November 22, 2022
    Assignee: Illinois Tool Works Inc.
    Inventors: Tracy Kucaba, Paul Konrath, Jared Herring
  • Patent number: 11504970
    Abstract: A printing fluid collector is described. In one example, the collector comprises a conveying mechanism for collecting printing fluid ejected from a printing fluid dispenser, and a connecting means for connecting the conveying mechanism to a printing system in an orientation such that the conveying mechanism is to collect printing fluid ejected from the printing fluid dispenser and convey the printing fluid in a direction which is substantially perpendicular to a direction of movement of a print medium along a print medium path.
    Type: Grant
    Filed: March 13, 2019
    Date of Patent: November 22, 2022
    Assignee: Hewlett-Packard Development Company, L.P.
    Inventors: Ignasi Bonjoch Roma, Oscar Moya Rojo, Josep Maria Bel Calavia
  • Patent number: 11504981
    Abstract: A printer includes: a platen configured to allow a rolled first recording medium and a sheet-like second recording medium to be placed thereon; and a guide table detachably provided on a base member and configured to guide movement of the second recording medium. The platen includes a first platen on which the first recording medium and the second recording medium are placed, and a second platen disposed ahead of the first platen, including an upper surface tilted obliquely downward from the rear toward the front, and configured to guide movement of the first recording medium. The guide table includes a placement portion including a flat upper surface which is located below the first platen and above a portion of the second platen and on which the second recording medium is placed.
    Type: Grant
    Filed: June 7, 2021
    Date of Patent: November 22, 2022
    Assignee: Roland DG Corporation
    Inventors: Misaki Konishi, Tsutomu Takenouchi, Tetsuya Okuda, Takeru Muranaka
  • Patent number: 11504986
    Abstract: A printing device includes a first accommodating unit, an image-recording unit, a cutting unit, and a second accommodating unit. The first accommodating unit is configured to accommodate a printing medium therein. The printing medium is conveyed in a first conveying direction along a first conveying path. The cutting unit is configured to cut the printing medium to separate the printing medium into a first printing medium and a second printing medium. The second accommodating unit is configured to accommodate therein the second printing medium which has is produced by cutting the printing medium by the cutting unit. A length of the second accommodating unit in a printing medium conveying direction is shorter than a length of the first accommodating unit in the printing medium conveying direction. The second printing medium is conveyed to the second accommodating unit in a second conveying direction along a second conveying path.
    Type: Grant
    Filed: March 30, 2021
    Date of Patent: November 22, 2022
    Assignee: BROTHER KOGYO KABUSHIKI KAISHA
    Inventor: Mamoru Namba