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:
Nov. 13, 2001
Filed:
Nov. 30, 1998
Hiroyuki Funahashi, Nagoya, JP;
Brother Kogyo Kabushiki Kaisha, Nagoya, JP;
Abstract
An image forming apparatus is provided to smoothly form images corresponding to received image data even if the memory becomes full when collated printing is executed. If the memory never becomes full during collated printing, images for all of the pages are expanded to intermediate data, stored in a page memory, and complete collated printing is enabled. In the meantime, if the memory becomes full while the print data of part of a page is expanded to intermediate data and stored, the controller, controls so that the page memory can be written after collated printing is executed up to a page immediately before the partial page and the residual pages are printed in the form of collated printing. Therefore, even if the memory becomes full, printing can be executed in a form as close to collated printing as possible.