Electrophotography – Diagnostics – Document handling
Reexamination Certificate
2000-08-29
2001-11-27
Chen, Sophia S. (Department: 2852)
Electrophotography
Diagnostics
Document handling
C358S462000, C382S112000, C399S015000, C399S384000
Reexamination Certificate
active
06324353
ABSTRACT:
BACKGROUND OF THE INVENTION
This invention relates to printing systems. In particular, the invention relates to a printing system which is adapted to produce printed documents with high speed, whereby the printing data are provided from a variable print data source and the printing system is a kind of production line.
In today's high speed printing environment the assurance of document verification and process control is increasing. However, according to a further demand, the printing speed should not be significantly reduced by any inspection techniques. The speed of a single high-speed printer normally exceeds 50 DIN A 4 pages per minute. Its speed may even be some hundreds up to a thousand DIN A
4
pages (images) per minute and—by further development of high speed variable data printers—may even increase to still higher printing speeds.
To further increase the printing speed of variable data printing lines, it has been proposed to perform printing of documents over two or more printers. In particular, this may apply to printers printing on fanfold recording carriers, whereby the carrier already printed by a first printer is subsequently fed to a second printer for a second printing process. The first printer may print onto a first side (front side) of the printing carrier while the second printer may print onto the reverse side of the carrier. Alternatively, the first and second printers may print on the same side of the carrier, but the printers may be loaded with different inks. In particular, electrographic printers such as electrostatographic or magnetographic printers may utilize different toners such as standard optical black toner, colored toner or magnetic ink character readable toner, which is also known in the art as MICR toner.
A further electrophotographic printer especially adapted for printing on a fanfold recording carrier is described in U.S. Pat. No. 5,778,297.
In many presently available printing systems document verification is not performed at all. However, there have been proposed printing systems with integrated qualification or inspection systems for the printed images. Such a system is described in U.S. Pat. No. 5,235,652. This system comprises a set of measurement modules which have sensors for forming various inspection functions such as image location and spacing measurements; image print contrast/intensity measurement; image skew angle measurements; image stroke width measurement; image edge variation measurement; image void measurement; image size and dimension measurement; image extraneous ink measurement and image curvature measurement.
If such a document verification system is to be introduced into a production printing line, various technical problems occur.
SUMMARY OF THE INVENTION
An object of the invention is to provide a system for inspecting printed documents comprising optical and magnetic information. More particularly, the information may be printed on a continuous web-shaped recording carrier. Still more particularly, the carrier may be fanfold paper.
According to a first aspect of the invention there is provided a method or a system for printing at least one of optical and magnetic information onto a continuous web-shaped recording carrier. The carrier comprises at least one of an optical recording zone and a magnetic recording zone. Magnetic information is printed by a printing station on the recording carrier using magnetic ink character readable toner (MICR toner). Optical information printed by the printing station is being tested by an optical inspection system and magnetic readable information printed by the printing station is being tested by a magnetic inspection system. Both the optical inspection system and the magnetic inspection system are located in-line to the printing line. In addition to at least one printing device, the printing line may comprise additional devices such as printer preprocessing unwinders or print postprocessing stackers, folders or cutters.
When a continuous web of recording material is used, such as paper unwound from a roll or fanfold paper input from a stack, the in-line inspection systems are located at any place of the printing line along the web, where the inspection system may be able to inspect information, which is printed on the web.
In a preferred embodiment of invention, the testing step is controlled by print stops of the printing station. In a still more preferred embodiment of the invention, the magnetic test equipment is mounted at an output zone of a printing device and in particular it is mounted at a stacker. Testing may comprise print quality, e.g. optical density or strength of magnetic field, as well as a print contents test.
According to another aspect of the invention, a system controller is provided, by which printing operation is selectively stopped for verification of recorded magnetic information on the carrier.
According to a still another object of the invention, three different scanning systems, in particular an optical camera system, a bar code scanning system and a reading device for magnetic ink are operating in combination. Signals of these three different scanning systems are captured by a data acquisition system and the data are processed by a data management system. According to this aspect of the invention, print quality inspection, document verification and document tracking may be performed. Print quality inspection may comprise, but is not limited to, optical density measurement, magnetic character signal level and signal uniformity across the document. Document verification may comprise but is not limited to comparison between predetermined data to be printed and data captured by the inspection system from the printed document. For that purpose an electronic comparison device may be connected to both an electronic print data source and the document test equipment.
According to the latter aspect of the invention, three different technologies are used to check or verify printed documents in a document production line. The first technology might comprise a vision system such as a CCD camera for checking optical information on the documents. The second technology may comprise a laser scanner for checking bar code information on the documents. The third technology may comprise a magnetic ink reading device to check magnetically coded information printed on the documents. Any information read from the documents is processed through an intelligent data acquisition system. An overall management system will use such data to allow high level client applications to display information, to support decision making based on them and to track documents passing through the printing system.
In particular, the invention is suitable for use in document printing lines which print magnetic information onto the documents. The printing line may comprise a printing device as disclosed in WO-A-99/24877, corresponding to U.S. Ser. No. 09/254,292. The printing device described therein is an electrophotographic printing device which prints magnetic ink character recognition toner (MICR toner) on documents. This US patent application is hereby incorporated by reference into the present disclosure.
According to a still further object of the invention, document tracking is performed. Document tracking implies the precise monitoring of the position of a particular document throughout the production line at any given time. Various checkpoints are arranged along a printing line for printing documents. At each checkpoint any document passing the checkpoint will be detected and its position and actual time are stored in a document tracking managing system. Thereby, the actual document position may be monitored at any given time.
In another aspect of the invention, a stand-alone box separate from the printer is provided for housing the MICR reader, bar code scanner, and CCD camera.
REFERENCES:
patent: 4027142 (1977-05-01), Paup et al.
patent: 4563086 (1986-01-01), Knapp et al.
patent: 4980719 (1990-12-01), Allen et al.
patent: 5025483 (1991-06-01), Dinan et al.
patent: 5132808 (1992-
Bhattacharya Abhijit
Dietz Leon T.
Laussermair Thomas
Lorenz Frank
Ribeiro Tony
Chen Sophia S.
OcePrinting Systems GmbH
Schiff & Hardin & Waite
LandOfFree
Document verification and tracking system for printed material does not yet have a rating. At this time, there are no reviews or comments for this patent.
If you have personal experience with Document verification and tracking system for printed material, we encourage you to share that experience with our LandOfFree.com community. Your opinion is very important and Document verification and tracking system for printed material will most certainly appreciate the feedback.
Profile ID: LFUS-PAI-O-2585667