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:
Sep. 14, 2004
Filed:
Jun. 11, 2002
Stanley C. Tungate, Jr., Lexington, KY (US);
Cary Ravitz, Lexington, KY (US);
Thomas G. Twardeck, Lexington, KY (US);
Albert M. Carter, Jr., Richmond, KY (US);
Gary A. Denton, Lexington, KY (US);
Lexmark International, Inc., Lexington, KY (US);
Abstract
Artificial toner consumption is triggered to minimize the incidence of “conditioned” toner when a comparison of the rate of toner consumption to the mechanical activity of the electrophotographic printing device indicates that the toner consumption rate is too low. The artificial toner consumption operation may be achieved through a dummy print operation where an intentionally un-printed image is formed on a photoconductive drum, but the corresponding toner is routed to appropriate waste toner reservoir(s) and the image is not printed on the recording medium. The dummy print toner may be cleaned from the photoconductive drum without being transferred to an intermediate transfer medium and/or may be cleaned from the intermediate transfer medium, both without transferring the toner to the recording medium. The dummy print operation may correspond to a next normally occurring interdocument gap or a dedicated dummy print period inserted between print jobs.