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AssigneeHewlett-Packard Development Company, L.P.
InventorsAndrew L. Van Brocklin, Kuohua (Angus) Wu, Alok Sharan, Vladek Kasperchik
Estimating the term…
In one embodiment, a printing device includes: a print engine configured to apply marking material to print media; a laser writer configured to expose the print media to a laser beam of sufficient energy to change the reflectivity of exposed portions of the print media; a media path along which the print engine may apply marking material to print media in a macro printing zone and along which the print media may be exposed to a beam of light emitted by the laser writer in a micro printing zone; and an electronic controller operatively connected to the print engine for selectively applying marking material to the print media and to the laser writer for selectively exposing the print media to a laser beam.
A printing device, comprising:
Dependencies are inferred from the claim text.
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From the US filing history. Foreign family members aren’t listed.
Printing processes to produce particular kinds of printed work, e.g. patterns: security printing
With two or more sets of type or printing elements: combination of different types, e.g. using a thermal transfer head and an inkjet print head
Attached to the image data, e.g. file header, transmitted message header, information on the same page or in the same computer file as the image:…
Of data relating to an image, a page or a document: of authentication information, e.g. digital signature, watermark
About 4 years 9 months of term left · ends 12 Jul 2031 (estimated)
It is sometimes desirable to create markings on documents that cannot be seen by a human user but that may be read by a machine. Lasers are used to write and read microscopic markings on optical data storage disks, commonly known as CDs and DVDs for example. In some CD writers, a layer of laser absorbing dye on the CD is exposed to a controlled pulsing laser light to write data on to the CD. The heat generated when the dye absorbs the laser light darkens the dye at each of the locations exposed to the laser light, changing the reflectivity of the CD at those locations. A reading laser in a CD player detects the pattern of changing reflectivity to “read” the data “written” on the CD. It would be advantageous, therefore, to be able to “print” microscopic markings on paper documents and read such markings from those documents in much the same way that microscopic data is written to and read from a CD.
FIG. 1 is a block diagram illustrating an inkjet printer that includes a laser writer, according to one embodiment of the invention.
FIG. 2 is a perspective view illustrating an inkjet printer with a laser writer such as the printer shown in the block diagram of FIG. 1, according to one embodiment of the invention.
FIG. 3 is an elevation and partial section view of the printer of FIG. 2.
Embodiments of the invention were conceived as part of an effort to develop micro printing techniques that could be implemented in inkjet and other digital printing technologies. Embodiments of the invention will be described with reference to inkjet printers and inkjet type multi-function printing devices (MFPs). The invention, however, is not limited to inkjet printing devices but may be embodied in any suitable printing technology.
As used in this document, “laser” means a device for generating a beam of coherent light; “lamp” means a source of incoherent light; and “burn” or “burning” includes physically removing material (ablation, for example), changing the physical state and optical/reflective properties of the material without changing the chemical state of the material (crystalline to amorphous phase transition, for example), and/or changing the chemical state of the material through radiation (photo or thermally induced degradation of the material).
Inkjet Printer with Laser Writer