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:
Mar. 28, 2000
Filed:
Dec. 22, 1997
Junji Nakahara, Nagoya, JP;
Brother Kogyo Kabushiki Kaisha, Nagoya, JP;
Abstract
An ink jet printer has a printing head that ejects ink supplied from an ink source, from a nozzle to a recording medium, and a preliminary ejection unit that performs preliminary ink ejection from the nozzle to a waste ink receiving portion provided at a predetermined position, to achieve a good ink ejecting condition of the printing head. A timer measures elapsed time including time between an operation of preliminary ink ejection to the waste ink receiving portion and output of a printing instruction. A controller variably controls the amount of the ink to be preliminarily ejected to the waste ink receiving portion, corresponding to the length of the elapsed time measured by the timer. If a plurality of heads that eject different inks are provided, the amount of ink to be preliminarily ejected is varied corresponding to the elapsed time and properties of the inks.