Typewriting machines – Including interposed inking device for record-medium – Ribbon-feeding mechanism
Reexamination Certificate
1999-05-27
2001-05-01
Hilten, John S. (Department: 2854)
Typewriting machines
Including interposed inking device for record-medium
Ribbon-feeding mechanism
C400S227000, C400S207000, C400S196000
Reexamination Certificate
active
06224276
ABSTRACT:
BACKGROUND OF THE INVENTION
1. Field of the Invention
This invention relates to an ink ribbon use restriction unit provided to prevent improper use of an ink ribbon used for, for example, a video printer.
2. Description of Related Art
Color video printers, which print an image taken at that time on sealing photographic papers, have been popular in the field of, for example, amusement in recent years.
As a color video printer used in this field, for example, the printer of sublimation thermal printing are widely used, for example, three ink ribbons of yellow, cyan, and magenta are used and the respective color inks are thermally transferred on a photographic paper by means of a thermal head to print an image.
For example, the above-mentioned ink ribbon comprises a long vinyl sheet ribbon having a width corresponding to the vertical or horizontal size of a specified photographic paper, a supply spool on which a vinyl sheet ink ribbon is wound, and a winding spool for winding up the ink ribbon which has been used for printing, and an ink ribbon itself is fabricated in the form of a cartridge which is detachable to the printer. An ink cartridge usually has a printing capacity for printing, for example, about 200 sheets of photographic paper.
Some color video printer users use an ink cartridge until all the printable sheet portion of an ink ribbon is wound entirely on a winding spool and then rewind the used ink ribbon of the ink ribbon cartridge on a supply spool, and then reuse the used ink ribbon, with doing a foul trick by use of the above-mentioned structure of an ink ribbon cartridge.
Such reuse of an ink ribbon gives naturally an image, which is printed on a photographic paper, of poorer image quality than that of an image to be resulted from a fresh ink ribbon because ink of the reused ink ribbon is partially blanked when it has been used first.
The specific photographic paper which should be used for the color video printer is recommended to secure the good image quality and smooth paper feeding operation, however, some users who reuse a used ink ribbon cartridge often use the un-recommended photographic paper instead of the recommended photographic paper. In such case, the printed image quality becomes poorer further and in addition, for example, operational trouble such as that an ink ribbon is not peeled off smoothly from a photographic paper is caused often when ink is thermally transferred onto the photographic paper by means of a thermal head because a photographic paper which is not recommended is used.
SUMMARY OF THE INVENTION
The present invention was accomplished to solve the above-mentioned problem, and it is the object of the present invention to prevent the reuse of an ink ribbon, and resultantly to maintain the good printed image quality and to avoid the operational trouble of a printer.
An ink ribbon cartridge having an ink ribbon feeding mechanism comprising a supply spool, an ink ribbon wound on a winding spool, and an ink ribbon holder for supporting the ink ribbon is provided with an ink ribbon damaging means, thereby the prescribed portion of the ink ribbon once used for printing is damaged.
An ink ribbon cartridge is provided with a rotation direction restricting means for allowing the rotation in proper direction for printing and for preventing the rotation in the direction reverse to the proper direction of at least one of the supply spool and the winding spool, thereby at least one of the supply spool and the winding spool is not rotatable in the direction reverse to the rotation direction for feeding the ink ribbon for printing.
REFERENCES:
patent: 4504015 (1985-03-01), Meinhardt et al.
patent: 4688954 (1987-08-01), Hofmann
patent: 4926123 (1990-05-01), Berson et al.
patent: 5079565 (1992-01-01), Shimizu et al.
patent: 5152621 (1992-10-01), Tsuji
patent: 5595447 (1997-01-01), Takayama et al.
patent: 5620265 (1997-04-01), Kondo
patent: 0 094 035 (1983-05-01), None
Funayama Hidehiko
Iwanabe Takatoshi
Chau Minh
Crosby, Heafey Roach & May
Hilten John S.
Sony Corporation
Wigert, Jr. J. William
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