Incremental printing of symbolic information – Ink jet – Ejector mechanism
Reexamination Certificate
2002-02-22
2003-10-07
Nguyen, Thinh (Department: 2853)
Incremental printing of symbolic information
Ink jet
Ejector mechanism
Reexamination Certificate
active
06629753
ABSTRACT:
BACKGROUND OF THE INVENTION
1. Field of the Invention
The present invention relates to a printing system including a plurality of printers on which printing of print data, provided by a request source, is carried out, and particularly relates to a printing system and a method in which common electronic printing data is sent to a plurality of middle- or small-printers to perform printing of the common printing data.
2. Description of the Related Art
Even in the surging innovation of the present information technology generation, people wish to take a close look at electronic data, which is printed on a medium such as paper. This results in consumption of 160 million sheets of A4-sized paper in a single year in Japan (as of year of 2001). There is a ten percent growth every year in the number of mediums, on which high-quality graphic art is printed, despite the reduction of its share rate of printed matter.
Furthermore, it is becoming routine for information to be exchanged using electronic data, however, newspaper and other print mediums still play an important role in information circulation in social systems. Newspaper fulfils various requirements that electronic data alone cannot satisfy.
Accompanying drawing
FIG. 8
schematically shows a conventional printing system. In conventional printing system
200
in
FIG. 8
, print mediums, such as newspaper or magazines, are created by printing electronic printing data (data to be printed) and then delivered to delivery destinations, clients or bookstores. Print system
200
comprises a printing station
250
, a distributor
220
, destination clients
230
, a request source
240
, and a delivery destination
260
.
Request source
240
previously prepared printing data and provided printing station
250
with the printing data to request printing. For example, if the print mediums in question are newspaper, request source
240
corresponds to a newspaper publisher. If such print mediums are magazines, request-source
240
will be a magazine press.
Print station
250
includes a large-scale printer
210
, which carries out printing of printing data provided by request source
240
. Print station
250
delivers print mediums, as the result of printing, to distributor
220
, request source
240
, and/or delivery destination
260
. Large-scale printer
210
is able to perform high-speed large volume printing, thereby carrying out printing on thousands of mediums per minute.
A plurality of printing stations
250
are installed, one in an individual particular area, however only one printing station
250
appears in FIG.
8
.
Distributor
220
delivers print mediums (e.g., newspaper), on which large-scale printer
210
has carried out printing, to destination clients
230
. The print mediums are also delivered to delivery destination
260
other than distributor
220
or request source
240
. Delivery destination
260
may be a wholesale merchant.
In conventional printing system
200
, since large-scale printer
210
, installed in printing station
250
, carries out printing on a large number of mediums at a time, printing cost per medium is minimized. At the same time, printing station
250
delivers a large number of mediums to a plurality of distributors
220
or delivery destinations
260
at once thereby further reducing transportation costs for a single print medium.
Nevertheless, it is difficult for large-scale printer
210
to perform printing on a small number of mediums due to its high-speed printing performance. Because operation of large-scale printer
210
only for a couple of minutes creates thousands of print mediums, test printing is prohibitively expensive.
Therefore, large-scale printer
210
is preferably not applied to large item small volume printing, and test printing is rarely performed on large-scale printer
210
that actually performs printing of particular printing data on a large number of mediums.
In the meantime, request source
240
may wish to confirm and examine a result of printing of print data (i.e., a print medium on which the print data is printed), prior to the printing of the printing data on a large number of mediums (a large-scale printing). For this purpose, conventional printing system
200
includes color correction equipment (not shown in
FIG. 8
) which estimates a result of printing of the particular printing data, whereupon request source
240
examines the estimated result.
The color characteristic information of the color correction equipment may however frequently differ from that of large-scale printer
210
. Therefore colors in the result of printing carried out on large-scale printer
210
occasionally do not coincide with those of the estimated result, which has been examined by a request source prior to the printing being carried out on large-scale printer
210
, whereupon the examination of the estimated result may be ultimately futile.
The delivery of newspaper as a print medium may take an extra long time in accordance with distance between each distributor
220
and printing station
250
, where large-scale printer
250
carries out printing. Namely, a length of time required for delivery forces newspaper manuscript deadlines to be set much earlier than the time when the newspaper is delivered to subscribers. Therefore newspaper has a disadvantage in terms of speed of news reporting compared with other media, such as television or radio.
Further, as specific printing data is printed on a large number of mediums at a single printing station
250
at a time, it is almost impossible to modify the particular printing data for each of destination clients
230
. Conventional printing system
200
cannot grant a request from an individual destination client
230
even when each of the destination clients
230
wants a print medium without a particular article or a particular advertisement.
When a plurality of retail stores or the like use advertisement sheets identical in contents, such advertisement sheets are printed at printing station
250
and delivered to clients over the areas targeted by the retail stores. Such large-scale printing prevents the contents of the advertisement from being modified or changed to suit each delivery destination, or each of the plural retail stores. For that reason, clients may complain about the advertisement sheets and blame the retail stores when a particular commodity on the advertisement sheet is not sold at some of the plural retail stores (especially, at a retail store at which an individual client intends to purchase the commodity) and when a client assumes that a particular commodity is sold at a store which does not sell the commodity.
Operations carried out on large-scale printer
210
require a skilled engineer thereby boosting labor cost.
In conventional printing system
200
, large-scale printers
210
, installed in each of print stations
250
in a respective area, carry out printing. However, the color characters unique to each of the plural large-scale printer
210
, are not managed by printing system
200
. Therefore, when the plural large-scale printers perform printing based on common electronic printing data, the results of printing on respective large-scale printer
210
may not coincide.
SUMMARY OF THE INVENTION
With the foregoing problems in view, it is a first object of the present invention to provide printing system and method suitable for large item small volume printing at a low cost, reducing a length of time required for delivering print mediums to delivery destinations from a place where each printer is installed. It is a second object to provide printing system and method that is operable to provide a print medium that meets a request from an individual client. It is a third object to provide printing system and method for realizing print mediums, on which common electronic printing data is printed by each one of plural printers, identical in colors.
To attain the first through third objects, there is provided a tele-printing system comprising: a plurality of printers each for performing printing on a medium based on
Fujitsu Limited
Nguyen Thinh
Staas & Halsey , LLP
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