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:
Feb. 01, 2000
Filed:
Sep. 15, 1998
Hitoshi Ushiogi, Mishima, JP;
Takuro Ito, Shizuoka-ken, JP;
Toshiba Tec Kabushiki Kaisha, Tokyo, JP;
Abstract
The ink-jet printer includes four ink tanks for detachably supporting four ink reserve bottles filled with inks of different colors and, for storing the inks respectively supplied from the ink reserve bottles, a print head having four nozzle units and connected to receive inks supplied from the ink tanks for printing a color image by ejecting the inks from the nozzle units onto a paper sheet, a lock system for locking each ink reserve bottle attached to a corresponding ink tank to prevent detachment from the corresponding ink tank, and a lock system controller for controlling the lock system. The lock system controller includes a detecting section for detecting which one of the ink reserve bottles has been locked by the lock system, and an unlock section for causing the lock system to unlock any of the ink reserve bottles to be detached from the ink tanks for replacement, in a manner such that ink reserve bottles other than the unlocked one are inhibited from being unlocked until the unlocked ink reserve bottle is replaced by a new ink reserve bottle and the new ink reserve bottle is detected to be locked by the lock system.