Method of encoding roll length indicia on printer media
AssigneeHewlett-Packard Company
InventorCraig S. Huston
Life of this patent
Estimating the term…
Abstract
Rolls of printer paper are marked with information which indicates the length of paper remaining on a roll by measuring the distance between indicia successively applied by two separate print drums which each apply indicia at substantially equally spaced first and second intervals, respectively. The length of paper remaining on the roll is determinable by measuring the spacing between indicia applied by each drum. Some of the applied indicia may also be bar-coded with roll length indicia which includes a second means of determining length of paper remaining on a print roll and other information such as paper type, total roll length and name of the manufacturer. The indicia can be applied at speeds of paper travel substantially higher than the fastest known dynamic printing techniques.
Claims21
A method of applying length indicating indicia to print media comprising the steps of:
- a) providing a continuous length of print media to be marked with length indicia;
- b) applying first indicia to a face side of said media at substantially equally spaced first intervals along said length of print media;
- and
- c) applying second indicia to said face side of said media at substantially equally spaced second intervals along said length of print media, said second intervals being of length unequal to said first intervals;
- to provide machine readable predictably variable spacing between successive first and second indicia which varies along the length of the marked print media;
- and
- d) further comprising the step of forming a roll of print media from said length of marked media.
Dependencies are inferred from the claim text.