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. 19, 2002
Filed:
Jan. 04, 2000
Kohtaroh Yonenaga, Kanagawa, JP;
Ricoh Company, Ltd., Tokyo, JP;
Abstract
An image forming apparatus of the present invention continuously conveys a first and a second document set on an ADF (Automatic Document Feeder) and having a reference image size to a document reading unit. When the document reading unit reads the first and second documents, image data read out of the second document are written to a delay memory. After the first document has been read, the image data of the second document are read out of the delay memory on the elapse of a period of time corresponding to a difference between an interval between consecutive papers and an interval between the above documents fed by the ADF. The apparatus can therefore efficiently form the images of two documents at the same time without resorting to a large capacity memory. Alternatively, when the document reading unit starts reading the first document after the second document, the image data of the first document may be delayed by the difference between the two intervals. This allows the two documents to be stored at the interval between the consecutive papers and thereby insures high quality images free from defective registration.