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:
May. 27, 2003
Filed:
Sep. 27, 2001
Yuichiro Kanoshima, Ohta-ku, JP;
Kohji Ichimiya, Ohta-ku, JP;
Satoshi Igari, Ohta-ku, JP;
Mamoru Kiyota, Ohta-ku, JP;
Nekka Matsuura, Ohta-ku, JP;
Yasuyuki Shinkai, Ohta-ku, JP;
Makoto Obu, Chiisagatagun, JP;
Ricoh Company, Ltd., Tokyo, JP;
Abstract
An integration density acquiring unit for a consumption information management apparatus acquires integration density from an image signal sent from an image processing section, and an information converting unit calculates a quantity of consumed toner (consumption information) by multiplying the integration density by a specified coefficient to send the quantity to a cumulative consumption information calculating unit. The cumulative consumption information calculating unit temporarily stores the information for the quantity of toner consumption in a memory, and reads out the information from the memory at predetermined timing. Accordingly, it is possible to determine only the cost for developer used by a user or calculate the quantity of developer remaining within an image formation apparatus based on the cumulative consumption information for the unadjusted developer stored in the memory.