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:
Sep. 21, 1999
Filed:
Nov. 06, 1997
Tomokazu Kato, Toyokawa, JP;
Hiroyuki Asai, Okazaki, JP;
Hidenobu Nakamura, Toyokawa, JP;
Tomoyuki Atsumi, Toyohashi, JP;
Minolta Co., Ltd., Osaka, JP;
Abstract
The invention provides an image forming apparatus such as a coin-operated copy machine, which has an upper limit value to the number of copies which are authorized to be made and which also copies both sides of originals fed to the image forming apparatus. The image forming apparatus is configured so that its intermediate tray, which temporarily stores sheets copied on their first side, is empty at the end of a copy cycle and despite the image forming apparatus being fed more double-sided originals to copy than are authorized to be copied. The image forming apparatus compares the upper limit value of the number of copies authorized to be made to the number of single-sided copies already made in the current copying cycle and begins copying the second side of the originals onto sheets from the intermediate tray when the upper limit value equals a constant K plus twice the number of images formed. The image forming apparatus thus eliminates the problem of single-sided but unfinished copies being present in the intermediate tray when the apparatus is to start its next copy cycle, since the intermediate tray of the image forming apparatus is emptied by the end of the imaging cycle.