Appeal No. 1999-1629
Application 08/510,491
Herbert discloses utilizing melted solid ink, but states that
the cleaning means may be used with inkjet print heads
utilizing liquid inks (col. 6, lines 13-20). The operation of
the printing nozzles is checked by printing a bar code by
operating all of the nozzles and then parts of the bar code
printed by different ones of the nozzles are optically sensed
and checked that they are properly printed (col. 4,
lines 27-67). Data signals may be sent to the print head in
either a serial fashion (Fig. 3; col. 5, lines 11-28) or a
parallel fashion (Fig. 4; col. 5, lines 51-63).
Nakagawa is directed to an anti-clogging device in an
inkjet printer. When nozzles are exposed to the atmosphere
for a set time without discharging ink or when the number of
discharge cycles is extremely low, moisture in the ink inside
the nozzles can evaporate causing sticking, clogging, and
discharge failure (translation, p. 4). The prior art drives
all the nozzles at periodic intervals to discard old ink to
provide anti-clogging control; however, this reduces printer
throughput and increases costs (translation, p. 4). Nakagawa
provides a counter that counts the number of discharges per
nozzle individually, compares the number of discharges to a
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