The patent badge is an abbreviated version of the USPTO patent document. The patent badge does contain a link to the full patent document.
The patent badge is an abbreviated version of the USPTO patent document. The patent badge covers the following: Patent number, Date patent was issued, Date patent was filed, Title of the patent, Applicant, Inventor, Assignee, Attorney firm, Primary examiner, Assistant examiner, CPCs, and Abstract. The patent badge does contain a link to the full patent document (in Adobe Acrobat format, aka pdf). To download or print any patent click here.
Patent No.:
Date of Patent:
Jul. 13, 1999
Filed:
Jan. 23, 1997
Stephen Kelly Cunnagin, Lexington, KY (US);
Thomas Jon Eade, Lexington, KY (US);
Lexmark International, Inc., Lexington, KY (US);
Abstract
A printing system and method is provided that compacts bitmap print data by determining, per each swath of a page to be printed, the beginning and ending points of each 'area' containing pels that will actually be printed within the swath, the locations of the starting and ending slices of each of these areas, and determining 'voids' containing a sufficient minimum number of consecutive blank slices within the swath. A void is identified when a number of consecutive blank slices exceeds a predetermined threshold value. The printhead of the printing system will be turned off at the beginning of the void, and then turned back on as it approaches the end of the void, which would correspond to the beginning of the next area to be printed.