Photography – Fluid-treating apparatus – Heating – cooling – or temperature detecting
Reexamination Certificate
2000-10-06
2002-05-28
Rutledge, D (Department: 2851)
Photography
Fluid-treating apparatus
Heating, cooling, or temperature detecting
C396S580000, C396S585000, C396S604000, C396S599000
Reexamination Certificate
active
06394669
ABSTRACT:
FIELD OF THE INVENTION
The present invention relates to a photofinishing apparatus for reproducing images, more particularly to a compact image reproducing apparatus that prints images, applies or fixes the images with a durable material and delivers those images in a finished full bleed cut print state with a minimization of media waste production.
BACKGROUND OF THE INVENTION
Durability is a performance criterion that is expected by consumers of photographic prints. This criterion includes resistance to tearing, fading, water and chemical exposure plus numerous other factors. In the current state of the art, silver halide prints demonstrate a high degree of overall durability in relation to other printing methods such as ink jet and thermal dye diffusion. This fact is one of the reasons why other forms of photographic quality printing technologies are not completely supplanting the silver halide share of the market. However, these other technologies are rapidly improving durability through the addition of materials and processes.
One example of a non-silver halide printing process that produces a durable photographic quality print is the Kodak Picture Maker. The Kodak Picture Maker creates durable prints by using the same thermal dye diffusion printing process that is used to produce the image on the media. Specifically, this printing process is one in which dye is transferred from a donor ribbon to media by means of heating a thermal printhead while the printhead, donor ribbon and media are in mechanical contact. By performing this process in a serial fashion for three separate primary color patches (sometimes there is a fourth black patch) in a controlled manner, an image can be produced on the media. To ensure durability, this printing process is performed one more time except that instead of dye transfer, a continuous clear overcoat material is transferred to the media. This process is often referred to as peel-apart or thermal transfer overcoat (TTO).
A second example of a non-silver halide printing process that produces a durable photographic quality print is the Canon Hyperphoto. Patents associated with this type of process are U.S. Pat. Nos. 4,832,984 and 4,785,313, as well as European Patents 0 858 905 A1 and 0 858 906 A1. In the Canon Hyperphoto case the original media has already been pre-coated with a special chemical layer prior to printing (actually done during the production of the media). This coating is designed such that during the ink jet printing process, the inks can penetrate the layer and stabilize on an ink-receiving layer below the special coating. The Canon Hyperphoto then uses a heated fuser to seal this top coating over the image after the print cycle is complete. This process is often referred to as incorporated since the durability material is already incorporated into the media prior to printing.
Both of these apparatuses produce prints that are quite acceptable to consumers both from an image quality and durability aspect. However, there still are issues to consider. For example, these technologies are slower at producing prints per unit of time (defined as productivity) than a comparable machine associated with silver halide technology. This is partly due to the fact that these printing processes are slower than silver halide printers, but in addition the need to apply a durable material involves another process which adds more time. Another issue is that these printing processes do not inherently produce full bleed prints, which is a standard within the photofinishing retail business. In fact, the prints produced by the two aforementioned printing systems have borders and require an additional manual or automated cutting process to produce full bleed finished prints. This course of action only exasperates the already low productivity just described. Therefore, there is a need to print with high productivity, still allow a durable material to be fixed or applied, and efficiently produce full bleed finished prints for printing systems such as ink jet and thermal dye diffusion to compete in the photofinishing market.
The solution to this need can utilize various strategic paths. One path that is being taken by numerous printer companies is to attack the need by increasing the speed of the base printing mechanism. For example, in the ink jet printing industry, there is an effort to increase the firing rate of print heads as well as the number of actuators or nozzles per print head in order to achieve higher speed addressing of media space. While this strategy makes sense, it does not preclude other less direct solution paths. For example, Capurso describes in European Patent 0 992 347 A2 a reservoir for collecting the excess ink that is sprayed outside of the media within an ink jet printer. This mechanism would thus allow full bleed prints to be more easily produced within a given printer architecture. One illustration of this would be to have a classic desktop ink jet printer working with a fixed width continuous roll of media. The printer could continually print out full bleed images that with a single chopper-cutting machine could easily turn these images into individual full bleed prints. The problem with this scenario is that this machine does not have the productivity that is anywhere close to what is expected in photofinishing sites. One could multiplex many of these machines but issues will exist in the areas of footprint, printer variation, durability application, and sorting.
Another form of indirect solution is to efficiently architecture all of the processes that take printed media and convert it into the finished full-bleed prints. These processes include the printing itself but also could include the durability fixing or application, drying, cutting and sorting. We define here that the processes other than the printing itself are post-print treatment processes. If these processes are architectured efficiently around the printing, then one should able to minimize the issues discussed throughout this section. For example, European Patent 0 703 497 A1 to B. A. Phillips et al offers an example of a cutting system that produces finished full-bleed prints. One basic drawback of European Patent 0 703 497 A1 is that the design is narrowed to a media segment with a fixed size plurality of images printed on the media segment. This is an issue in a system that must handle variable formats such as now exists with the advent of the Advanced Photo System (APS). The second drawback is that this system describes that it can do this cutting without producing any waste media byproduct. However, this assumption would be based on very precise image placement on the media segment and very precise cutting mechanisms. A third issue is that in a printing system that also requires a fixing or application of a durability material, the modular design of the cutter requires some interface to the durability mechanism. This interface is critical at meeting productivity and footprint criteria. Therefore, the intention of the invention is to describe a post print treatment system of a general architecture that minimizes most of the issues just stated. More specifically, the present invention relates to a photofinishing apparatus for reproducing images, more particularly to a compact image reproducing apparatus that prints images, applies or fixes the images with a durable material and delivers those images in a finished full bleed cut state with a minimization of media waste production.
SUMMARY OF THE INVENTION
An object of the present invention is to produce photographic quality durable full bleed images. By full bleed images, Applicant's are referring to image or prints with no border or images that extend to the end of a print.
A further object of the invention to produce durable printed images with minimal waste of the media and durability materials.
A further object of the invention to minimize the time required in producing a customer order that comprises a plurality of the durable full bleed prints.
A further object of the invention is to complete mu
Janosky Mark S.
Larrabee James A.
Eastman Kodak Company
Novais David A.
Rutledge D
LandOfFree
Post-print treatment processor for a photofinishing apparatus does not yet have a rating. At this time, there are no reviews or comments for this patent.
If you have personal experience with Post-print treatment processor for a photofinishing apparatus, we encourage you to share that experience with our LandOfFree.com community. Your opinion is very important and Post-print treatment processor for a photofinishing apparatus will most certainly appreciate the feedback.
Profile ID: LFUS-PAI-O-2825514