ALEXANDRIA, Va., Oct. 8 -- United States Patent no. 12,434,479, issued on Oct. 7, was assigned to SCREEN Holdings Co. Ltd. (Kyoto, Japan).
"Printing apparatus and printing method" was invented by Kazuhiko Asada (Kyoto, Japan) and Yasunori Akiyoshi (Kyoto, Japan).
According to the abstract* released by the U.S. Patent & Trademark Office: "An ink is circulated in a circulation path including a supply sub-tank, a discharge head and a collection sub-tank in a head unit. If the amount of the ink in the head unit decreases, the ink stored in the buffer tank is replenished to the head unit. On the other hand, in a first non-replenishment time during which the ink is not replenished, the ink is circulated through the buffer tank, the collection s...