Title of Invention

METHOD AND DEVICE FOR PRINTING A DOCUMENT ON A PAPER FROM A SELECTED PAPER TRAY

Abstract

An Image forming device with intelligence of selecting separate source trays, which decides selection of a tray by on the basis of image settings fired by the user. The invention explains an image forming device with intelligence of selecting separate source trays the said device comprising: programming means for the device to decide on the parameters that will control the tray selection; storing means to store the said parameters; comparing means to compare the preconfigured parameters and a set of another parameters related to image quality; selecting means to select an image quality and fire a request for a print job; mapping means for the mapping of print quality parameters; electro mechanical device to pick a paper from a given tray; and interpreter which notifies the settings of the fields to the controller of the electromechanical device.

Full Text

FIELD OF INVENTION The invention is related to the field of printers. It can also be used in copier or any other image forming devices which uses a paper or similar sheet like material to form or print an image. It is meant to reduce user intervention in deciding the image forming medium in such devices. More particularly, this invention relates to an image forming device with intelligence of selecting separate source trays. DESCRIPTION OF THE RELATED ART There are many inventions in field of sorting and placing the images which are printed into different bins. The concept behind this invention is to provide a simple device which will help the image forming apparatus to decide on the source of image forming medium based on the requested quality of the image. The US Patent No. 6,406,201 (Auxiliary print media tray for printers) touches upon the matter to a certain extent. The art disclosed in the US patent No. 6,406,201 describes an auxiliary print media tray or cartridge forms part of a print media handling system that provides for holding two discrete supplies of print media in a manner that permits the user to select printing media from one supply or another, without the need for first emptying either of the supplies. The print media is oriented in a manner such that both supplies engage a common media feed mechanism, such as pick and feed rollers. As a result, a printer that employs two discrete media supplies is provided without the increased manufacturing cost or size that would otherwise be required if duplicate pick and feed rollers (or related components) were employed. One embodiment of the present invention is particularly adapted for holding in an auxiliary tray a supply of relatively small print media, such as photo-type paper that is popular as a medium upon which high-quality digital images may be printed. The following were the shortcomings with the US patent explained above: 1. There is a requirement of manual intervention in determining the input tray. 2. The default tray is fixed, i.e., user does not have the flexibility of selecting a default tray. 3. Once the source is changed to auxiliary tray, manual intervention is required to reset the same. 4. Since the tray selection is completely mechanical, it is not easy to remotely administer these printers. SUMMARY OF THE INVENTION The invention consists of an entirely different architecture of auxiliary tray which will be controlled by electro mechanical devices such as a spring loaded solenoid system. It also contains a method of dynamically selecting one of these sources which based on the image quality settings. These settings can be changed by an operator if required. Operator is also given the freedom to select the default tray. All these administration tasks can be performed remotely in a networked system if necessary. The invention explains an image forming device with intelligence of selecting separate source trays the said device comprising: (a) programming means for the device to decide on the parameters that will control the tray selection; (b) storing means to store the said parameters; (c) comparing means to compare the preconfigured parameters and a set of another parameters related to image quality; (d) selecting means to select an image quality and fire a request for a print job; (e) mapping means for the mapping of print quality parameters; (f) electro mechanical device to pick a paper from a given tray; and (g) interpreter which notifies the settings of the fields to the controller of the electromechanical device. These and other objects, features and advantages of the present invention will become more readily apparent from the detailed description taken in conjunction with the drawings and the claims. BRIEF DESCRIPTION OF THE ACCOMPANYING DRAWINGS Figure 1 shows the diagrammatic representation of the configuration process. Figure 2 is the flow diagram of the proposed system. DETAILED DESCRIPTION OF THE INVENTION The preferred embodiments of the present invention will now be explained with reference to the accompanying drawings. It should be understood however that the disclosed embodiments are merely exemplary of the invention, which may be embodied in various forms. The following description and drawings are not to be construed as limiting the invention and numerous specific details are described to provide a thorough understanding of the present invention, as the basis for the claims and as a basis for teaching one skilled in the art on how to make and/or use the invention. However, in certain instances, well-known or conventional details are not described in order not to unnecessarily obscure the present invention in detail. The objective of the invention is to reduce the user intervention in selecting a source of print medium when a document is printed. The invented device will have multiple trays for the source and the printer will possess enough intelligence to decide on the source. This can be affected by the intervention of an operator possessing administrative access to the system. Figure 1. shows the diagrammatic representation of the configuration process. The administrator or the privileged user configures a mapping between various image parameters and the source trays present in the printer. This configuration can be done using web interface or a local Ul. When ever a user fires a print, the qualities of the same are compared with the pre-defined settings and a appropriate source tray is selected. The invention consists of the following parts: 1. A printer which has multiple source trays which can be maneuvered by an electro-mechanical device. 2. The above printer is programmable by an administrative operator to decide on the parameters that will control the tray selection. 3. The printer has required intelligence needed to distinguish between the trays by comparing a set of preconfigured parameters and a set of another parameters related to image quality. 4. The trays are connected to an electromechanical device. The device stores a set of parameters that is used to determine the default tray for a particular level of image quality. The user selects an image quality and fires a request for a print job. The printer will compare the image quality settings with the preconfigured datum and decide on the source tray. An operator can make one of the two trays default by a remote administration tool. So, even if the user fires request for a good quality image, the administrator can prevent him from wasting costly print media. Any one of the above source can be set as the default source. This coupled with electro-mechanical control will allow the smooth transition of source trays. The manual intervention is not present as seen in the case of related art. The printer can make the choice of source trays. This can be optionally over driven by the user (if one possesses enough permission to do so). This makes the system more users friendly. A remote administrator will be able to control the usage of print media without much trouble. No user intervention is needed in restoring the trays after trays are once changed. A user may avoid operator settings if needed. It may have separate authentication mechanism for selecting the trays, so that apart from operator; even a group of privileged users can do the same. The mechanical design of the above described electromechanical system is beyond the scope of this patent. But for the completion of the description, this can be assumed to be any mechanical device such as a combination of a movable wedge and rollers that can pick a paper from a given tray. Such systems are already used in the present day multifunctional devices. We are more interested in a control mechanism that can direct such a system about the source from which the paper to be picked up for current print job. The printer device described has a non-volatile memory that stores the settings made by a privileged user about the tray selection. These settings are nothing but a mapping of print quality parameters to the tray that is going to be used for storing papers for taking prints of that quality. The user sets certain qualities for the print while issuing a print job as done in case of any normal print. When any print job is received at the printer, the interpreter notifies the settings of these fields to the controller of the electromechanical device that decides the source tray. The controller then compares the received settings with the preset map and decides which source tray to be used. It then passes control to the paper pick-up mechanism of that tray and the print job proceeds as usual. Figure 2 describes in details the steps and methodologies involved in achieving the above mentioned functionality. The proposed device will have a table (Part 4) describing the mapping between the quality parameters of the document and the tray that has appropriate kind of paper for printing. This table resides on a separate non-volatile memory or on a part of non-volatile memory that already exists in the system. When the user initiates a print job via a normal/modified print driver (Part 1), document related information is also passed by the driver along with the data. Driver can optionally pass a specific PJL command that will help the printer to determine the print quality directly. When the print data reaches the printer it will be processed by a modified PJL parser (Part 2). This parser can recognize the special command generated by the modified driver. But, even if the driver does not pass any variable to printer, if the printer supports dynamic selection of trays, it can generate a quality parameter based on resolution, type and size of the document using the method of weighted averages. These parameters will be passed to the printer even by a normal driver. The weights that the parser associates with type, resolution etc may vary from implementation. This quality parameter is then passed to the decision logic (Part 3) which compares the quality parameter with the entries in non-volatile memory map (Part 4). It then decides which tray contains the appropriate paper and communicates with the paper pickup engine (Part 5), so that the correct tray and paper will be used while printing. Once the tray is decided the printing proceeds as normal. The foregoing description of illustrated embodiments of the present invention, including what is described in the Abstract, is not intended to be exhaustive or to limit the invention to the precise forms disclosed herein. While specific embodiments of, and examples for, the invention are described herein for illustrative purposes only, various equivalent modifications are possible within the spirit and scope of the present invention, as those skilled in the relevant art will recognize and appreciate. As indicated, these modifications may be made to the present invention in light of the foregoing description of illustrated embodiments of the present invention and are to be included within the spirit and scope of the present invention. Thus, while the present invention has been described herein with reference to particular embodiments thereof, a latitude of modification, various changes and substitutions are intended in the foregoing disclosures, and it will be appreciated that in some instances some features of embodiments of the invention will be employed without a corresponding use of other features without departing from the scope and spirit of the invention as set forth. Therefore, many modifications may be made to adapt a particular situation or material to the essential scope and spirit of the present invention. It is intended that the invention not be limited to the particular terms used in following claims and/or to the particular embodiment disclosed as the best mode contemplated for carrying out this invention, but that the invention will include any and ail embodiments and equivalents falling within the scope of the appended claims. WE CLAIM 1. An image forming device with intelligence of selecting separate source trays the said device comprising: (a) programming means for the device to decide on the parameters that will control the tray selection; (b) storing means to store the said parameters; (c) comparing means to compare the preconfigured parameters and a set of another parameters related to image quality; (d) selecting means to select an image quality and fire a request for a print job; (e) mapping means for the mapping of print quality parameters; (f) electro mechanical device to pick a paper from a given tray; and (g) interpreter which notifies the settings of the fields to the controller of the electromechanical device. 2. A system as claimed in claim 1 wherein the said device which has multiple source trays is maneuvered by an electro-mechanical device. 3. A system as claimed in claim 1 wherein the said device is programmable by an administrative operator to decide on the parameters that will control the tray selection. 4. A system as claimed in claim 1 wherein the required intelligence needed to distinguish between the trays by the device is achieved by comparing a set of preconfigured parameters and a set of another parameters related to image quality. 5. A system as claimed in claim 1 wherein the device stores a set of parameters that is used to determine the default tray for a particular level of image quality. 6. A system as claimed in claim 1 wherein the user selects an image quality and fires a request for a print job. 7. A system as claimed in claim 1 wherein an operator can make one of the two trays default by a remote administration tool. 8. A system as claimed in claim 1 wherein the device has a non-volatile memory that stores the settings made by a privileged user about the tray selection. 9. A system as claimed in claim 9 wherein the said settings are a mapping of print quality parameters to the tray that is going to be used for storing papers for taking prints of that quality. 10. A system as claimed in claim 1 wherein the user sets certain qualities for the print while issuing a print job as done in case of any normal print 11. A system as claimed in claim 1 wherein when any print job is received at the printer, the interpreter notifies the settings of these fields to the controller of the electromechanical device that decides the source tray. 12. A system as claimed in claim 1 wherein the controller compares the received settings with the preset map and decides which source tray to be used. 13. A system as claimed in claim 1 wherein the said mapping and other configuration is done using web interface or a local Ul. 14. A system as claimed in claim 1 wherein after the said comparison is over the control is passed to the paper pick-up mechanism of that tray and the print job proceeds as usual. 15. A system as claimed in claim 1 wherein the said electro mechanical device use a combination of a movable wedge and rollers to pick a paper from a given tray. 16. A system as claimed in claim 1 wherein all the administration tasks of the said device can be performed remotely in a networked system. 17. A system as claimed in claim 1 wherein a table is maintained for describing the mapping between the quality parameters of the document and the tray that has appropriate kind of paper for printing. 18. A system as claimed in claim 1 wherein the said table resides on a separate non¬volatile memory or on a part of non-volatile memory in the system. 19. An image forming device with intelligence of selecting separate source trays substantially as herein described particularly with reference to the drawings.

Documents:

162-CHE-2005 AMENDED PAGES OF SPECIFICATION 24-08-2012.pdf

162-CHE-2005 AMENDED CLAIMS 24-08-2012.pdf

162-CHE-2005 CORRESPONDENCE OTHERS 24-08-2012.pdf

162-CHE-2005 POWER OF ATTORNEY 24-08-2012.pdf

162-CHE-2005 AMENDED PAGES OF SPECIFICATION 16-03-2012.pdf

162-CHE-2005 AMENDED CLAIMS 16-03-2012.pdf

162-CHE-2005 EXAMINATION REPORT REPLY RECEIVED 16-03-2012.pdf

162-che-2005 form-1 19-06-2006.pdf

162-CHE-2005 FORM-1 16-03-2012.pdf

162-CHE-2005 FORM-13 24-08-2012.pdf

162-CHE-2005 FORM-13 16-03-2012.pdf

162-CHE-2005 FORM-5 16-03-2012.pdf

162-CHE-2005 POWER OF ATTORNEY 16-03-2012.pdf

162-che-2005 abstract.pdf

162-che-2005 claims.pdf

162-che-2005 correspondence others.pdf

162-che-2005 description (complete).pdf

162-che-2005 drawings.pdf

162-che-2005 form 1.pdf

162-che-2005 form 13 19-06-2006.pdf

162-che-2005 form 18.pdf

162-che-2005 power of attorney.pdf