Incremental printing of symbolic information – Thermal marking apparatus or processes
Reexamination Certificate
1999-07-23
2001-11-06
Le, N. (Department: 2861)
Incremental printing of symbolic information
Thermal marking apparatus or processes
Reexamination Certificate
active
06313856
ABSTRACT:
The invention relates to a device for the thermal application of information, e.g. characters, graphics, etc., to a heat-sensitive layer (foil) of an information carrier, preferably provided with an electronic data storage element in the form of a processor chip, e.g. ID card, smart card, access card or merchandise labelling card etc., with an input and output device for the information carrier formed by guides and with a deleting and/or printing device, which is arranged downstream of an energy control circuit for providing energy.
EP 0 431 155 B1 discloses a device for applying information onto an optical information carrier comprising a plastic card with a heat-sensitive film applied thereon, which has a deleting device, a pre-heating device, a writing device and a cooling device. In order to change plain text information on the heat-sensitive layer of the recording substrate, which can be erasably printed, the latter is fed to each of these function stations one after the other by a transport device and existing information is then changed to new, prespecified information. These changes are made in sequential steps and, in order to ensure the greatest security possible, time cycles must be short giving rise to a high throughput when amending plain text information on recording substrates of this type, which is very difficult to achieve. In addition, a recording substrate of this type is specifically suited only to the automated transfer of the information on the cards.
In EP 0 473 303 A2 a recording device for recording information onto a heat-sensitive layer of a recording carrier, in particular a magnetic card, is described. The magnetic strip of the recording carrier is in this case processable by a magnetic read and write head, which is conductively connected with a read or write control device. The read or wrote control device is in addition connected to a central control device which processes the data of the magnetic strip transmitted via the read or write control device. After data processing by the central control device the current data is sent to the read or write control device and fed to the magnetic read or write head, whereby the magnetic strip is rewritten. Said data can in addition be applied onto the heat-sensitive layer of the recording carrier. For this the recording device has a thermal delete head and a thermal print head for the heat treatment of the heat-sensitive layer. The delete head is here connected with an electric low temperature control and the print device is connected with an electric high temperature control. The low temperature control and the high temperature control are controlled by a print and delete control device which in turn is controlled by the central control device and receives the corresponding print data from the latter. It should also be mentioned that the processing of recording cards with integrated circuits is possible. A disadvantage here is that even slight positioning errors of the delete or print head relative to the recording carrier, which on the one hand can be caused by different temperature influences on the transport device for the recording carrier and on the other hand by an imprecise adjustment of the delete or print head, can lead to incomplete deletion results or to unclear write results. Most of all with an increasing period of use of this known recording device the obtained results get worse in particular with respect to the recording quality. In addition the plurality of communications protocols to be adhered to between the individual control devices is disadvantageous to the processing speed for a recording carrier obtainable by the recording device.
In the English language abstract of JP 04 197 656 A a further recording device for applying information stored on a magnetic recording layer of a magnetic card onto a layer of a recording medium changing colour due to the effect of heat is described. To delete information applied a delete roller heated by means of an independent heat source is contacted with the display region to be deleted and in this way the colour changing layer is brought into a transparent state. The disadvantage here is that magnetic cards cannot be used for forgery critical applications and only relatively small amounts of data can be recorded.
From the English language abstract of JP 02 050 897 A an additional device for applying information onto a magnetic card with a rewritable, heat-sensitive recording layer is known. The known recording layer can here be changed from an opaque into a transparent state and vice versa by the effect of heat and thus previously recorded information can be deleted. By heating specific parts of the recording layer to a defined temperature afterwards up-to-date information can be recorded onto the heat-sensitive layer. The heating device for deleting the heat-sensitive layer comprises a heat roller which is heated by an independent heat source remote from the heat roller and is thus heated indirectly. The disadvantage here is that the magnetic card is only suitable for recording relatively small amounts of data and by means of the indirectly heated heat roller, in particular on the standstill thereof, difficult to control fluctuations in temperature occur on the heat roller, which have a negative influence on the deletion result.
From JP 08 039 838 A a further recording apparatus for applying information onto a heat-sensitive layer of a recording medium is known. Previously recorded information on the recording carrier can be deleted by means of a deleting device designed as a heat roller in that the entire surface of the recording medium is heated. The heat roller is assigned a temperature sensor for detecting the current temperature. Despite monitoring the temperature of the heat roller, in particular with worn or deformed information carriers no satisfactory deletion results can be obtained.
In JP 62 267 788 A a fixing device for toner of a copying device applied to paper is described. In this case the copy payer is guided between a heat roller and a hollow heat drum. The heat roller has a friction increasing elastic layer made of an elastic material such as silicone, rubber of the like for a slip free drive of the naturally flexible copy paper. The object or piece of paper to be treated is in the shown fixing device in addition guided by adopting a specific wrapping contact angle about the heat roller and thereby heavily deformed. The treatment of mainly rigid objects is not possible using the shown device.
The objective of the invention is to provide a device, by means of which information to be edited on the basis of editable information in a data storage element provided on the information carrier can be made available to the user of an information carrier of this type in plain text.
The objective of the invention is achieved in that the deleting device is formed by a heatable roller with a flexible surface and the processing and transfer of the information of the electronic data storage element to the printing device is performed by a processor. The surprising advantage of this system is that manipulation of the chip can be combined with simultaneous conversion to readable information in a space-saving arrangement operating on a short time cycle, thereby obtaining a high throughput for manipulations of this type. A particular advantage is also that by the use of a delete roller the surface of the heat-sensitive layer is protected so that the service life of the information carrier is increased. A further advantage is that unevenness in the information carrier caused by the elastic surface can be evened out so that a complete deletion of the entire heat-sensitive layer is achieved.
It is also advantageous, to arrange the deleting device adjacent and the printing device for the heat-sensitive layer to achieve a rapid delete and writing process for the heat-sensitive layer, whereby due to the short distance of travel between the deleting device and the printing device a complete cooling of the heat-sensitive layer is prevented.
It is also advant
Collard & Roe P.C.
Feggins K.
Le N.
Ulrich Electronic GmbH
LandOfFree
Device for thermal application of information and... does not yet have a rating. At this time, there are no reviews or comments for this patent.
If you have personal experience with Device for thermal application of information and..., we encourage you to share that experience with our LandOfFree.com community. Your opinion is very important and Device for thermal application of information and... will most certainly appreciate the feedback.
Profile ID: LFUS-PAI-O-2615926