Typewriting machines – Sheet or web – For feeding web record-medium
Reexamination Certificate
1998-07-20
2001-08-07
Hilten, John S. (Department: 2854)
Typewriting machines
Sheet or web
For feeding web record-medium
C400S621000
Reexamination Certificate
active
06270269
ABSTRACT:
BACKGROUND OF THE INVENTION
1. Technical Field
The present invention relates to a tape printing device for printing one or more lines of input characters on strip-like tape.
2. Background Art
In the case of a conventional tape printing device for printing a title on the spine of a binder or on what is called a title label to be attached to a cassette for use in a VCR (VIDEO CASSETTE RECORDER) or in a VTR (VIDEO TAPE RECORDER), input characters entered by using keys or the like for inputting characters are printed on a side of tape, on the other side of which an adhesive layer is formed, by performing a thermal transfer printing or the like. Thereby, an objective printed tape is produced.
In the conventional tape printing device, operating elements (keys or buttons or the like) for entering information representing characters are placed on a console panel. Users can input a desired sequence of characters by operating these operating elements for entering information representing characters. Moreover, this conventional tape printing device is formed in such a manner that tape can be fed through a tape discharging slot by driving a tape feeding mechanism. Furthermore, a printing mechanism, which is constituted by a thermal print head, and a tape cutting mechanism are placed in series in this passage for tape.
When a print directing key is operated, a control means of the tape printing device controls and causes the tape feeding mechanism to feed the tape at a predetermined speed. The control means further controls and causes a print station to print preliminarily inputted characters on the fed tape. Moreover, upon completion of printing of a sequence of the characters, the control means of the tape printing device continuously controls and causes the tape feeding mechanism to feed the tape without printing characters (namely, perform a non-printing feeding operation on the tape) until a printed part of the tape goes out of the device. Thereafter, the control means causes the tape feeding mechanism to make the tape stop running.
Further, after the tape stops running, a user operates the tape cutting mechanism to thereby obtain a custom label, on which the sequence of desired characters are printed.
Meanwhile, a user sometimes inputs character strings erroneously to the tape printing device of such a kind and operates a printing operation element without being aware of an error. Further, the tape printing device of such a kind is adapted so that a user can freely designate the typefaces, sizes and arrangement of characters and so forth. However, a user sometimes causes the tape printing device to print characters without correcting attributes of characters, which have been erroneously designated. Further, sometimes, a user advertently operates the printing operation element halfway through a character inputting stage.
Upon occasion, a user is aware of such an error in the middle of a character printing operation. The conventional tape printing device, however, possesses the properties that a medium, on which characters are printed, is tape and that the number of characters to be printed is considerably small and a print time is short, in comparison with other kinds of character information processors (for example, what is called a word processor). Thus the conventional tape printing device does not have the function of stopping a printing operation. Therefore, when a user wishes to cease printing so as to effectively avoid wasting expensive tape, the user operates a power-supply operation element and turns off the power to thereby cease printing. Thereafter, the user turns on the power again and corrects the error. Subsequently, the user causes the device to perform a non-printing feed operation on tape and then print the correct characters again. Thus the user obtains a desired label.
However, such an operation of turning off the power and printing characters again in this way has the problem that if such an operation is not performed without errors, the tape is wasted.
As shown in FIG.
1
(A), in the case of the conventional tape printing device, a thermal printing head
2
and a tape cutting mechanism
3
are placed in series on a tape transport passage on which tape T is moved by a tape feeding mechanism (not shown) in the direction of an arrow A (incidentally, an ink ribbon is omitted). Therefore, when the power is turned off and the printing operation is suspended, unfinished tape is left between the thermal printing head
2
and the tape cutting mechanism
3
(see FIG.
1
(B)).
Thus, a label, on the leading part of which an unnecessary character is printed, is made if the power is then turned on and the printing operation is performed again without a non-printing feeding of the tape. Therefore, in the case that the power is turned off halfway through a printing operation, it is necessary to perform a non-printing feeding operation on tape and then cut the tape before the next printing operation is instructed. However, when a user wrongly operates a printing operation element in the tape printing device, a user may not perform a non-printing feeding operation on tape. Further, the user may turn off the power and leave the tape. In such a case, the user is required to cut a label, which is made by resuming a printing operation on the tape, namely, by arranging a character string, which has not been printed, at the head of a character string to subsequently be printed on the tape, at the front position of the label with scissors or the like.
Moreover, even in the case that the tape has been fed without printing characters or the like, if the amount of a fed part of tape is too small, an unnecessary character may be printed at the front position of the label (see FIG.
1
(B)). Conversely, if too large, the tape is wasted by the amount of an excessively fed part thereof (see FIG.
1
(C)).
Objects to be printed by the tape printing device are labels. Thus, in the case of printing a label by using the tape printing device, it is very frequent that a user requires the tape printing device to print mixed characters of various character sizes thereon, as compared with the case of making printed matter by using other kinds of character information processors. The tape printing device, therefore, have characters of various character sizes available. Moreover, the tape printing device is adapted so that the character size can be easily altered in a part of a character string to be printed. Such various character sizes include not only character sizes of characters represented by blocks of dots, in each of which the number of columns of dots is equal to that of rows of dots, but also other character sizes of characters, each of which is laterally shrunk. Thus, there are provided many kinds of the sizes of full-size characters. Further, the character size of a character can be easily changed among the sizes of full-size characters. Consequently, half-size characters are not available in the conventional tape printing device. When a user requests the conventional tape printing device to print a character of the size which is of the order of the half size, the tape printing device copes with such a request by using a smaller full-size character size.
Here, the half-size character is a character whose width is half the printing width of an ordinary character. Especially, in the case of kanji characters of Japanese and Chinese, the number of dots required for forming a kanji character is larger than that of dots required for forming a letter of the English alphabet. Thus, in the case of printing a numeric character that can be represented by dots of the number which is as small as that of dots required for representing a letter of the English alphabet, usually, both of a corresponding half-size numeric character, whose character width is half the character width of a kanji character, and a corresponding full-size numeric character, which represents a number by using dots of the same number as of dots required to represent a kanji character, are properly used.
Further, labels, which are printe
Aida Chieko
Hosokawa Takeshi
Kameda Takanobu
Kurashina Hiroyasu
Shimmura Tomoyuki
Hilten John S.
King Jim Co. Ltd.
Lorusso & Loud
Nolan, Jr. Charles H.
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