Appeal No. 2000-0703
Application No. 08/490,268
promote uniform wear of the ink ejection elements and the
nozzles. In one embodiment, the invention achieves this by not
always beginning the printing of each line of text with the top
nozzles in the printhead by controlling the activation of the ink
ejection elements and paper shifting so that, sometimes, other
than the top nozzles are aligned with the top of a line of text
to printed. This is shown in Figures 3 and 4 and described on
page 4 of the specification. This approach results in uniformity
of the use of the ink ejection elements and nozzles in the
printhead. A further understanding of the invention can be
achieved from the following claim:
1. A printing method for achieving more uniform wear
of nozzles in an inkjet printhead, each of said nozzles
having an associated ink ejection element which is
energized to cause a droplet of ink to be expelled
through an associated nozzle, said method comprising
the steps of:
selectively energizing ink ejection elements in
said printhead during one or more first scans of said
printhead across a recording medium, wherein certain
ones of said ink ejection elements during said one or
more first scans are energized more frequently than
other ink ejection elements in said printhead;
transporting said recording medium through a print
zone such that an area to be printed upon during one or
more second scans of said printhead resides in said
print zone; and
2
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