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. 15, 2009
Filed:
Dec. 11, 2006
Kohtaroh Yonenaga, Tokyo, JP;
Kohtaroh Yonenaga, Tokyo, JP;
Ricoh Company, Ltd., Tokyo, JP;
Abstract
An image forming apparatus network system having a first image forming apparatus connected with a plurality of second image forming apparatuses over a network, wherein the first image forming apparatus includes an image creating unit that creates an image with at least one toner based on an image data to be printed, and an image data volume computing unit that computes a volume of the image data, and a remaining toner information acquiring unit that acquires information on remaining toner from at least one of second image forming apparatuses, and a controlling unit that computes toner consumption from the volume of image data computed by the image data volume computing unit, selects a second image forming apparatus that has an amount of remaining toner larger than the toner consumption computed, and sends a command to form an image at the second image forming apparatus selected, and each of the second image forming apparatuses include a toner detecting unit that detects an amount of remaining toner in a corresponding second image forming apparatus, and a notifying unit that notifies the first image forming apparatus of information about the remaining toner detected by the toner detecting unit.