Printing system, printing method, and computer-readable medium

Patent metadata

Field	Value
Publication number	US-12449752-B2
Application number	US-202418675176-A
Country	US
Kind code	B2
Filing date	May 28, 2024
Priority date	Jun 2, 2023
Publication date	Oct 21, 2025
Grant date	Oct 21, 2025

Abstract

An electrophotographic printing system includes circuitry configured to: select, in accordance with an operation to an input device, a mask pattern made up of first toner representing black by a combination of a plurality of color toners, the mask pattern being overlaid on an image area of a target image to be concealed within image data; and generate, based on the image data, print data for overlaying and printing the selected mask pattern on the image area.

First claim

What is claimed is:

1. An electrophotographic printing system comprising:
circuitry configured to:
select, in accordance with an operation to an input device, a mask pattern made up of first toner representing black by a combination of a plurality of color toners, the mask pattern being overlaid on an image area of a target image to be concealed within image data; and
generate, based on the image data, print data for overlaying and printing the selected mask pattern on the image area.

2. The printing system according to claim 1 , wherein the circuitry is further configured to specify the image area of the target image in accordance with an operation to the input device.

3. The printing system according to claim 2 , wherein the circuitry is configured to specify a plurality of the image areas in accordance with the operation to the input device.

4. The printing system according to claim 1 , wherein the target image is printed with second toner that is black toner indicating absorption for infrared.

5. The printing system according to claim 4 , wherein a sum of a printing rate of the first toner for printing the mask pattern of the image area and a printing rate of the second toner for printing the target image of the image area is 250% or less.

6. The printing system according to claim 1 , wherein the combination of the plurality of color toners includes a combination of cyan toner, magenta toner, and yellow toner.

7. The printing system according to claim 1 , wherein the target image of the image area on which the mask pattern is printed is capable of be recognized by an infrared reader.

8. The printing system according to claim 1 , wherein the mask pattern has two or more common items among a size of characters or graphics constituting the target image, a type of font, a direction, an arrangement, an interval, and a line space.

9. The printing system according to claim 8 , wherein the mask pattern includes a mask pattern obtained by overlaying characters having different sizes.

10. A printing method for an electrophotographic printing system, the method comprising:
selecting, in accordance with an operation to an input device, a mask pattern made up of first toner representing black by a combination of a plurality of color toners, the mask pattern being overlaid on an image area of a target image to be concealed within image data; and
generating, based on the image data, print data for overlaying and printing the selected mask pattern on the image area.

11. A non-transitory computer-readable medium including programmed instructions that cause a computer mounted on an electrophotographic printing system to execute:
selecting, in accordance with an operation to an input device, a mask pattern made up of first toner representing black by a combination of a plurality of color toners, the mask pattern being overlaid on an image area of a target image to be concealed within image data; and
generating, based on the image data, print data for overlaying and printing the selected mask pattern on the image area.

Assignees

• Kunimi Keiji
• Kobayashi Ryo
• Ricoh Co Ltd

Inventors

• Kunimi Keiji
• Kobayashi Ryo

Classifications

• G03G15/5016 Primary

  User-machine interface; Display panels; Control console · CPC title

• G03G15/6585

  by using non-standard toners, e.g. transparent toner, gloss adding devices · CPC title

• G03G21/043

  by using an original which is not reproducible or only reproducible with a different appearence, e.g. originals with a photochromic layer or a colour background · CPC title

• G03G21/04

  Preventing copies being made of an original · CPC title

• G03G15/5062 Primary

  by measuring the characteristics of an image on the copy material · CPC title