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:
Apr. 11, 2006
Filed:
Dec. 24, 2003
Narutaka Yoshida, Toyokawa, JP;
Akira Kobayashi, Kawanishi, JP;
Narutaka Yoshida, Toyokawa, JP;
Akira Kobayashi, Kawanishi, JP;
Konica Minolta Business Technologies, Inc., Tokyo, JP;
Abstract
It is intended to provide an image forming apparatus that surely notifies a user of unit replacement timing and strongly urges the user to replace units without additional apparatus being applied thereto. A color printerdetects remaining life of each replaceable unit. When a certain replaceable unit nearly reaches its replacement timing, the color printerindicates that fact in an operation panel. When the remaining life lowers improvement prohibiting level, in other words, when the unit reaches its replacement timing, the color printerindicates a name of the unit to be replaced and necessity of replacement in the operation paneland prohibits image improvement operation. That is, an image is formed without image quality improvement operation. Thereby, image quality deteriorates. Image deterioration can surely notify a user of replacement timing of the unit and urge the user to replace the unit with a new one.