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:
Mar. 05, 2013
Filed:
Apr. 22, 2010
Seiji Izuo, Nagano-ken, JP;
Seiji Izuo, Nagano-ken, JP;
Seiko Epson Corporation, Tokyo, JP;
Abstract
A printer has a print head check unit that performs an ink ejection check to confirm whether or not ink is being ejected normally from nozzles, based on induced voltage generated when charged ink droplets are ejected onto a check area. Upon receipt of a print instruction (S), the printer sets a flag F to 1 so as to start an ink ejection check and starts a paper feed process (S). When the processes has been terminated (S, S), the printer starts printing. Accordingly, as an ink ejection check takes place concurrently with the paper feed process, the overall time required for the processes can be reduced, in comparison with any method in which the processes are executed separately. In this way, because of efficient implementation, the overall time required for the processes of the ejection check of the print recording liquid and an image forming process can be reduced. In addition, the ink ejection check may be performed in parallel with or partly overlapping with a process of receiving print data, a process of conversion into print data, a process of ejecting paper after printing, or a flashing process, etc.