Incremental printing of symbolic information – Ink jet – Housing
Reexamination Certificate
2002-08-13
2004-09-21
Vo, Anh T. N. (Department: 2861)
Incremental printing of symbolic information
Ink jet
Housing
C347S104000
Reexamination Certificate
active
06793335
ABSTRACT:
This application is based on Patent Application Nos. 2000-26109 filed Feb. 3, 2000, 2000-26112 filed Feb. 3, 2000, 2000-26115 filed Feb. 3, 2000, and 2000-26117 filed Feb. 3, 2000, in Japan, the content of which is incorporated hereinto by reference.
BACKGROUND OF THE INVENTION
Field of the Invention
The present invention relates to an inks-and-printing-media-integral-type pack, a printing liquids and sheets container for accommodating sheets and printing liquids, a sheet supplying device for sequentially supplying sheets from the printing liquids and sheets container, and a printing apparatus comprising the same.
The ink jet printing system is carried out by causing fine droplets of inks to fly and adhere to a printing medium such as paper based on various operational principles, to print images, characters, or the like, thereby enabling printing with low noise at a high speed. The ink jet printing system has advantages such as facilitation of multicolor printing and is characterized by a high degree of freedom for recordable patterns, elimination of the necessity of development or fixation, and others. Thus, printing apparatuses based on this system method have been rapidly spread in various fields including that of data processing to accommodate various images and print media.
In addition, images formed by means of the multicolor ink jet printing system can easily stand comparison with multicolor printing based on the plate making system or photographic printing based on the color photographing system. The multicolor ink jet printing system enables images to be produced more inexpensively than normal multicolor printing or photographic printing if a small number of copies are particularly to be printed and is thus widely used in the field of full-color image printing.
To accommodate wider applications of the ink jet printing system and enable the recent improvement of printing characteristics such as an increased printing speed, an improved definition, and full color printing, efforts are being made to improve the printing apparatus and method. Characteristics required to achieve wider applications of the ink jet printing system and improve the printing characteristics include, for example, a high density of printed ink dots, bright and clear color tones, fast ink absorption, prevention of outflow or bleeding of inks despite overlapping ink dots, and spread of ink dots with appropriate bleeding.
It is known that these characteristics are realized not only by the printing apparatus and method but also by improving inks or printing media used for printing.
For example, it is known that a coated paper is used as a printing medium due to ink absorptivity and fixability achieved thereby. The coated paper comprises, for example, a silicon pigment such as silica, or an absorbing polymer including a resin such as colloidal silica, polyvinyl pyrrolidone, polyvinyl alcohol, polyethylene oxide-isocyanate crosslinked material, or an acrylic polymer having a carboxyl group, or an aluminum-based pigment such as alumina hydrated compound or aluminum oxide, which is each coated on a paper, a film, a cloth, or the like together with an aqueous binder or the like. On the other hand, inks have their permeability adjusted by means of a surface-active agent or the like contained therein.
To accommodate the improvement of the printing characteristics, however, an optimal combination of printing media and inks which can realize these characteristics is more preferably selected by individually selecting printing media or inks depending on each of the characteristics. This is because the inks and the printing media show each of the characteristics through their mutual relationship.
In this case, to specifically realize the optical combination of the printing media and the inks in an inkjet printing apparatus, configurations and operations are required which replace or install the printing media or the inks depending on a combination of printing media and inks. Additionally, an operation is required for setting printing conditions on, for example, a host computer; for example, a printing mode must be set depending on such a combination. That is, it is cumbersome to carry out the above operations or setting operations each time the combination is switched. It is also difficult for a user to obtain the optimal combination.
In connection with this, for example, Japanese Patent Application Laid-Open No. Heisei 11-254700 proposes a media cartridge removably mounted in a printing apparatus and acting as a portable container comprising a cassette section in which sheets are loaded as printing media and a combination of any ink tank or a corresponding waste ink tank for accommodating a waste ink, the cassette section and the combination being integrated together. The printing apparatus then recognizes the media cartridge, which can be arbitrarily installed therein and removed therefrom, to automatically set a printing mode set depending on the printing media and the ink so that appropriate printing control can be provided depending on the combination of the printing media and the ink, using easy operations.
In a printing apparatus in which such a media cartridge is installed, a sheet supplying device provided in the printing apparatus main body discharges in turn each sheet such as paper or a textile outward from the media cartridge toward a position under an ink jet printing head for executing a printing operation.
The sheet supplying device includes a roller that comes into contact with a surface of the sheet at a predetermined pressure to transmit the sheet based on a friction force applied between the sheet and the roller. An outer peripheral portion of the roller is formed of a material such as natural rubber, silicon rubber, or artificial leather, for example, which has a relatively large friction coefficient and a wear resistance.
(1) Although, however, the above publication describes the media cartridge comprising the cassette for housing printing media and the ink tanks, the cassette and the ink tanks being integrated together, it describes no specific configuration that takes into account the size reduction of the apparatus or the handling and application of the cartridge in configuring a printing apparatus employing the cartridge.
It neither takes the materials or compositions of both printing media and inks into consideration nor suggests combinations that can achieve the above described desired printing characteristics based on such materials or compositions. That is, in the above publication, if for a paper cartridge, paper is set as printing media, corresponding inks are set to comprise a process liquid and black, yellow, magenta, and cyan inks. On the other hand, if coat paper, glossy paper, or OHP sheets are set as printing media, the corresponding inks are set to comprise the above inks excluding the process liquid. These settings take into account the fact that the above coat paper or the like having an ink receiving layer coated thereon has reduced image quality if the process liquid, which insolubilizes the inks, is used. Further, the above publication describes a setting for dark black, light black, dark yellow, light yellow, dark magenta, light magenta, dark cyan, and light cyan provided when a photographic-image-quality mode is set.
Thus, the above publication discloses the integral cartridge comprising a combination of inks selected, depending on the printing media or printing mode, from several types of inks that are easily distinguished from one another by a user. On the other hand, due to, for example, dye affinity, appropriate compositions of inks vary depending on the material or composition of printing media though the latter all appear the same to the user; thus, optimal combinations exist in this sense. In this case, it is almost impossible for the user to select such combinations.
Another problem results from the fact that many known ink jet printing apparatuses have more or less specified printing characteristics. Thus, in this case, it is relatively difficult to meet the
Inamoto Tadayoshi
Kaburagi Yoshiaki
Kuribayashi Akira
Saito Hiroyuki
Suzuki Mariko
Canon Kabushiki Kaisha
Fitzpatrick ,Cella, Harper & Scinto
Vo Anh T. N.
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