JP2002127550A - Parts for image recorded, method of judging therefor and method of making the same - Google Patents

Abstract

PROBLEM TO BE SOLVED: To provide parts for an image recorder, a method of judging the parts and a method of making the parts wherein erroneous loading or erroneous use of parts such as an inadequate consumable or a container for a consumable in the image recorder is adequately prevented so that deterioration of an image or a malfunction due to erroneous loading or erroneous use is eliminated, thereby allowing the image recorder to stably work in its predetermined function. SOLUTION: The parts to be loaded in the image recorder has a record section having encryption information obtained by encrypting discrimination information relating to the parts. The image recorder or a computer system connected thereto decrypts the encryption information by a decryption key and then it is judged whether or not the parts are adequate by using the information obtained by the decryption, thereby solving the problem.

Description

DETAILED DESCRIPTION OF THE INVENTION

[0001]

BACKGROUND OF THE INVENTION 1. Field of the Invention The present invention belongs to the technical field of an image recording apparatus such as an inkjet printer, a silver halide photographic printer, an electrophotographic printer, and a photographing apparatus. The present invention relates to an article for an image recording apparatus, a method for determining an article for an image recording apparatus, and a method for manufacturing an article for an image recording apparatus, which are capable of stably exhibiting.

[0002]

2. Description of the Related Art An ink jet printer in which a part of ink is rapidly vaporized by pulse heating and ink droplets are ejected from an orifice by the expansion force of the ink jet printer is disclosed in Japanese Patent Laid-Open Publication No. Sho.
Nos. 8-9622 and 54-51837. Also, Japanese Patent Application Laid-Open Nos. 5-50601 and 11
Japanese Patent Application Publication No. 20795/1996 discloses an ink jet printer in which a diaphragm (vibration plate) is arranged in an ink chamber, and the diaphragm is vibrated by static electricity or a piezo element, and the ink droplets are ejected from nozzles by the vibration. Is disclosed. Such an ink jet printer has advantages such as being relatively inexpensive, easy to handle, and obtaining an image of good image quality, and is widely used as a printer for various applications such as a color printer for a personal computer. It's being used.

[0003] In order to sufficiently and stably exhibit predetermined performance in various printers and image recording apparatuses such as the ink jet printer,
It is important that various consumables and the like to be mounted are appropriate. For example, in the above-described ink jet printer, an ink tank containing ink whose expiration date has expired (hereinafter, simply referred to as an ink tank whose expiration date has expired) or an ink tank corresponding to a printer of a different model may be used. When installed, the ink jet printer cannot exhibit the predetermined performance.For example, various kinds of failures such as output of an improper image with low image quality or clogging of ink flow paths and nozzles occur. Inconvenience occurs.

[0004] Therefore, it is desired to develop a method for suitably and effectively preventing attachment (entertainment attachment) of consumables such as ink tanks whose expiration date has expired and which are not properly adapted to printers and the like. I have.

[0005]

SUMMARY OF THE INVENTION It is an object of the present invention to solve the above-mentioned problems of the prior art. It is possible to prevent improper mounting and misuse of supplies such as consumables in the image recording device, eliminate image quality degradation and failures caused by improper mounting and misuse, and stabilize the specified performance of the image recording device. It is an object of the present invention to provide an article for an image recording apparatus, a method for determining an article for an image recording apparatus, and a method for manufacturing an article for an image recording apparatus, which are capable of realizing the best.

[0006]

In order to achieve the above object, a first aspect of the present invention is an article to be mounted on an image recording apparatus, wherein encrypted information is obtained by encrypting identification information relating to the article. The present invention provides an article of an image recording apparatus, characterized by having a recording section on which an image is recorded.

Here, the encryption information is encrypted by a public key encryption method, that is, the encryption information is obtained by encrypting the identification information with an encryption key different from a decryption key (hereinafter, referred to as a secret key). It is preferable that the information is encrypted information obtained by encrypting the information.

According to a second aspect of the present invention, in determining a product to be mounted on an image recording apparatus, the identification information of the product encrypted and the identification of the product encrypted after being compressed. At least one of the information is decrypted by a decryption key of the image recording device or a computer system connected to the image recording device, using the information obtained by decrypting,
It is another object of the present invention to provide a method of determining a product of an image recording apparatus, which comprises determining whether the product is appropriate.

Here, the encrypted identification information of the article is identification information of the article encrypted with a key (secret key) different from the decryption key, and is encrypted after being compressed. Preferably, the provided identification information of the article is the identification information of the article that has been compressed and then encrypted with the secret key.

When it is determined that the article is inappropriate, it is preferable that at least one of issuing a warning and switching to a state where the article cannot be used is performed.

According to a third aspect of the present invention, an article mounted on an image recording apparatus is provided with encryption information obtained by encrypting the identification information of the article, and encryption after compressing the identification information of the article. And recording at least one of the compressed encrypted information.

Here, the encryption information is encryption information obtained by encrypting the identification information with a secret key (a key different from a decryption key), and the compressed encryption information is obtained by compressing the identification information. It is preferably compressed encryption information encrypted with a secret key.

In each of the above aspects of the present invention, the article is any one of a consumable, a consumable container for storing the consumable, and a consumable container containing the consumable in the consumable container. preferable. Preferably, the recording unit is provided on at least one of the consumables and the consumables container of the consumables storage body.

Further, the identification information includes a manufacturing time, a lot number, a serial number, an expiration date, an initial expiration date, a content, a manufacturer, a model of the corresponding image recording apparatus, a type of article, and a storage amount of the article. And information on one or more of the article sizes, and it is preferable that identification information corresponding to the encryption information is recorded in the recording unit, and that the encryption information is obtained by compressing the identification information. It is preferable that the encrypted information is encrypted later, or, in addition to the encryption information, it is preferable that compressed encryption information encrypted after the identification information is compressed is further recorded.
Preferably, the compression is performed using a hash function.

[0015]

DETAILED DESCRIPTION OF THE PREFERRED EMBODIMENTS An article for an image recording apparatus, a method for determining an article for an image recording apparatus, and a method for manufacturing an article for an image recording apparatus according to the present invention will be described below in detail with reference to the preferred embodiments shown in the accompanying drawings. Will be described. In the present invention, the supplies of the image recording apparatus include not only consumables used in the image recording apparatus, but also consumables that are storage containers for storing the consumables, and consumables stored in the consumables container. It may be a consumables container, that is, any of a consumables container including a consumable and a consumables container.

Although the following description is an example in which the image recording apparatus and its articles according to the present invention are used for an ink jet printer and its ink tank, the present invention is not limited to this, and various image recording apparatuses and their Available for supplies. For example, an ink jet recording paper or an ink cartridge of an ink jet printer in which an ink tank and an ink jet head are integrated, or a toner cartridge of an electrophotographic printer, an ink ribbon cartridge of a dot impact printer or a thermal transfer printer, etc. It can be suitably used as an image recording apparatus such as various consumables and consumables housings for various printers, and further, for various photographing apparatuses such as photographing apparatuses and photo printers for print output thereof. The present invention can be suitably used as a silver halide photographic photosensitive material, for example, as a consumable such as a silver halide color paper, and as an article of an image recording apparatus such as a consumable storage.

FIG. 1A shows an ink jet printer and an ink container which is a consumables container thereof according to the present invention.
That is, an example used for an ink tank is schematically shown, and an example of a processing flow is shown in FIG. In FIG. 1A, the left side is an encryption information providing unit 12 in the manufacturing apparatus of the ink tank 10, and the right side is an ink jet printer (hereinafter, referred to as a printer) 14 to which the ink tank 10 is attached. Further, the ink tank 10 has a semiconductor memory 16 as a recording unit for recording the encryption information.

In the example shown in FIG. 1A, the encryption information providing unit 12 encrypts the identification information of the ink tank 12 and records it in the semiconductor memory 16. And an information recording unit 22.

The information acquiring section 18 acquires or further generates identification information for identifying the consumable container (that is, the ink tank 10 in the illustrated example), and generates the encrypted information.
The part to send to.

As the identification information of the ink tank 10, if the ink tank 10 can be confirmed to be an ink tank that stores ink properly corresponding to the printer 14, the ink or the consumable Various types of information on the ink tank 10, which is a container, can be used. As an example, ink or ink tank 1
0, production time, production lot number, product serial number,
Expiration date of use, information of contents such as ink color and seed, expiration date of initial installation (until first installation on printer 14), manufacturer (identification information), corresponding printer 1
4 model information, ink tank size and type information,
An ink storage amount and the like are exemplified, and at least one of them may be used as identification information. In addition to such direct information on the ink tank 10, a character string or a symbol string arbitrarily generated for confirmation may be used. Further, redundant information may be included in order to make decryption difficult and to improve information change detection capability. Even when the consumables can directly record cryptographic information or the like on the consumables themselves, such as ink jet recording paper or silver halide color paper, as the identification information, the manufacturing time of the consumables itself, the manufacturing lot number, If at least one of various information such as product serial number, expiration date, contents, initial installation expiration date, manufacturer, corresponding printer model, consumable type, consumable storage amount, consumable size, etc. is used. good.

As shown in FIG. 2A, the encrypting unit 20 which has received the identification information of the ink tank 10 from the information acquiring unit 18 encrypts this identification information using a predetermined secret key, and The information is sent to the information recording unit 22 as information.

The information recording unit 22 having received the encrypted identification information (encryption information) records the encryption information in the semiconductor memory 16 provided in the ink tank 10.

In the present invention, the recording section for recording the encryption information or further the identification information described later is not limited to the semiconductor memory 16 in the illustrated example. For example, various recording media such as a magnetic recording medium, an optical recording medium, and a magneto-optical recording medium can be used.In addition, a bar code obtained by converting an encrypted information into a bar code, a character string or a symbol string corresponding to the encrypted information, A hard copy such as a sticker recording the encryption information itself or the like may be used, or a character string or a symbol string corresponding to the encryption information or an engraving of the encryption information itself may be used, and various means can be used. In the case of directly recording the cryptographic information or the like on the consumables, for example, the information may be recorded as a character string, a symbol string, or a mark on the back surface of ink jet recording paper or silver halide color paper.

Regardless of which method is used, the recording section is designed so that copying and rewriting of encryption information or further information such as identification information is impossible, or the copied information or rewritten information is rewritten. According to the information, it is preferable to configure the target printer 14 so that it does not operate, or does not operate normally or correctly. Thereby, the predetermined performance can be more stably exhibited in the printer 14. In addition, the method of copy prevention is used to mark the mark of the product type such as a trademark or consumables, and to record the code as a watermark on the character. Any known method may be used according to the configuration of the recording unit and the recording method, such as making the encryption difficult to copy due to deterioration. When reading a code recorded as a watermark on a mark such as a trademark, not only reading the code, but also reading other parts of the mark that do not contain the code, it will be more appropriate to read the unsuitable consumables etc. Use of unsuitable articles can be prevented.

For example, a trademark (mark) shown in FIG.
FIG. 4B to FIG. 4F show an example in which the encryption of the identification code is inserted as a watermark into the information. That is, in these examples, a trademark attached to a consumable or an article such as a consumable supply container functions as a recording unit that records the encryption information which is a feature of the present invention. 4 (B) to 4 (F) correspond to FIG.
A 16-bit password (b1 ... b1) is assigned to the trademark shown in FIG.
6). Here, one bit is a parity bit for checking a password signal (password data bit). Here, FIG. 4B shows a case where point marks are put in all 16-bit positions as watermarks, and the password data is 0000000000000000 as shown in Table 1. 4 (C), FIG. 4 (D), FIG. 4 (E), and FIG. 4 (F) each show several bits of 16 bits as a watermark so that the secret data shown in Table 1 can be obtained. Shows the case where a point mark is placed at the position.

[0026]

[Table 1]

Further, in the present invention, the recording section including the semiconductor memory 16 for recording the cryptographic information and the like is not limited to being integrated with the ink tank (consumable goods storage body) 10. And may be separate,
Alternatively, it may be freely attachable to and detachable from the ink tank 10. That is, in the present invention, as described above, in a consumable supply container such as the ink tank 10, it is preferable to provide the recording unit in a consumable supply container such as the ink tank body. In the case of consumables such as color paper which can directly record encrypted information or the like, a recording unit can be provided in a package serving as a container for storing consumables or in the consumables themselves. Therefore, in the present invention, it is preferable that the recording unit is provided on at least one of the consumables of the consumables storage body and its storage container.

On the other hand, the printer 14 corresponding to the ink tank 10 has an information reading unit 24, a decoding unit 26, and an information checking unit 28. The printer 14 is basically a known inkjet printer except that it has a processing means for such information.

When the ink tank 10 is mounted on the ink tank mounting section 14a of the printer 14, the information reading section 24
Reads the encrypted information from the semiconductor memory 16 and sends it to the decryption unit 26.

In the decryption unit 26, a decryption key (decryption key) corresponding to the secret key used in the encryption unit 20 of the encryption information providing unit 12 is set.
As shown in (A), the encryption information is decrypted (decrypted) using the decryption key, and the decrypted identification information is sent to the information confirmation unit 28. The decryption used by the decryption unit 26 is preferably a public key from the viewpoint of facilitating the manufacture of a printer (image recording device). Here, the method of encryption and decryption is not particularly limited, and a different key is used for encryption and decryption, and an asymmetric encryption in which the other key cannot be easily calculated from one key, that is, a public key encryption. It is preferable to use a method. Public key cryptosystems include, for example, ACE sign based on the difficulty of factorization, RSA-PS
S, RSA-OAEP, EPOC-1, EPOC-2, EPOC-3, HIME-1, HIME
-2, DSA based on discrete logarithm problem, ACE Encrypt, ECAES in SEC1 using elliptic curve, ECDSA using elliptic hyperbola
in SEC1, MY-ELLTY ECMR, ES based on e root approximation function
A known method such as IGN-signature can be used.

The information confirming unit 28 confirms the transmitted identification information, and the attached ink tank 10 has expired, is dedicated to another model, or the contents are inappropriate. If the printer 14 does not properly support the printer 14 (that is, it is incorrectly mounted), the printer 14 determines that the printer 14 is not appropriate and sends the determination result to a predetermined portion of the printer 14, for example, a control unit (not shown).

The control unit of the printer 14 keeps the normal state if the ink tank 10 is appropriate according to the result of this determination. On the other hand, if incorrect,
A sound or display alerts the user that the ink tank 10 has been incorrectly installed, and if necessary, switches the printer 14 to a state where the ink tank (consumables storage unit) cannot be used. Therefore, according to the present invention, erroneous mounting can be prevented, an ink tank appropriate for the printer 14 can be mounted at all times, occurrence of a failure due to erroneous mounting, deterioration of image quality, and the like can be prevented. Performance can be exhibited stably.

Next, the method of determining a consumable item or a consumable item container according to the present invention will be described more specifically. FIG.
Consumables (ink) such as articles or the like having a mark (trademark) shown in FIGS. 4 (B) to 4 (F) as a recording part, in which encrypted data is recorded as a watermark on a trademark (mark) shown in (A). FIG. 5 shows the flow of the method for determining the consumables container (ink tank 10).

In this determination method, such a mark is read (with the image reading device of the image recording apparatus), decoded, and whether or not the article (consumable) is a proper and usable article (consumable) is determined. To confirm. Step S in FIG.
At 51, for example, the printer 14 shown in FIG.
An image reading apparatus having a resolution capable of accurately reading (reading) each bit of a mark (trademark) shown in FIG. 4C attached to the ink tank 10 of FIG. 4C, for example, information of a printer 14 shown in FIG. The reading unit 24 reads the entire mark.

Next, in step S52, the value of the encrypted data bit of the read data is determined. Subsequently, step S53
Performs a parity check for checking the parity bit of the password data bit. If the result of the parity check does not match (NG), the controller (not shown) of the printer 14 disables the supplies (consumables) in step S54. On the other hand, if the result of the parity check is a match (OK), in step S55, for example, the decryption unit 26 decrypts the information using a decryption key, that is, a public key, to create decrypted identification information.

Next, the information confirming unit 28 confirms the decryption identification information to determine whether or not the article (consumable) is appropriate. If the result of the determination is incorrect (NG), Returning to step S54, the control unit disables the use of the article (consumable). On the other hand, if the determination result is a proper product (OK), the read data is passed through a low-pass filter in step S57 to determine whether or not the read data itself read in step S51 is valid. Compare the output with fiducial mark data. If the comparison results are inconsistent, in step S59, the controller (not shown) makes the article (consumable) unusable. On the other hand, if the comparison results match, in step S60, the control unit makes the article (consumable) usable.

Therefore, according to the determination method of the present invention, it is possible to prevent erroneous mounting and misuse of consumables and consumables such as consumables housings, and to always ensure proper wear for the image recording apparatus (printer 14). It can be used by mounting articles such as articles and consumables storage, preventing the occurrence of failures and deterioration of image quality caused by incorrect mounting or misuse, and stably exerts the performance of the image recording apparatus. be able to.

In the example shown in FIG. 1A, only the encryption information is recorded in the semiconductor memory 16 of the ink tank 10, but the present invention is not limited to this. (Recording unit) may record unencrypted identification information. Thereby, it is possible to more accurately confirm the suitability of the ink tank 10. One example is schematically shown in FIG. 1B, and the flow of the operation is shown in FIG. Note that the example shown in FIG. 1B shares many components with the example shown in FIG. 1A, and thus the same portions are denoted by the same reference numerals, and the following description will be omitted. Perform different parts mainly.

In the example shown in FIG. 1B, the encryption information providing section 30 of the ink tank manufacturing apparatus includes the same information acquisition section 18 and encryption section 20 and the information recording section 34 as described above.
And As in the previous example, the identification information acquired by the information acquisition unit 18 is encrypted by the encryption unit 20 and sent to the information recording unit 34. In parallel with this, the identification information is also sent from the information acquisition unit 18 to the information recording unit 34. The information recording unit 34 records both the encrypted information obtained by encrypting the identification information and the identification information in the semiconductor memory 16 of the ink tank 10.

On the other hand, in this embodiment, the printer 32
Is the same information reading unit 24 and decoding unit 26
An information confirmation unit 38. When the ink tank 10 is mounted on the ink tank mounting portion 32a of the printer 32,
The information reading unit 24 reads the encryption information and the identification information recorded in the semiconductor memory 16. Similarly to the above, the encryption information is decrypted (decrypted) by the decryption unit 26 and the identification information
The information is returned to the information confirmation unit 38 for convenience, and the read identification information is also sent from the information reading unit 24 to the information confirmation unit 38.

The information confirmation section 38 first confirms whether or not the decryption identification information and the read identification information (temporary identification information) sent from the information reading section 24 match.
If the two do not match, the information confirmation unit 38 determines that the identification information is incorrect and determines that the ink tank 10 is incorrect. On the other hand, if both match properly, the information confirmation unit 38 further confirms the identification information itself as before, and determines whether or not the ink tank 10 is appropriate for the printer 32. Is determined. As in the previous example, the determination result is sent to the control unit of the printer 32, and if the ink tank 10 is improper, actions such as generation of a warning and stop of printing are performed.

Here, in such a mode in which the identification information in addition to the encryption information is recorded in the semiconductor memory 16 (recording unit) of the ink tank 10, the encryption information is obtained by encrypting the identification information compressed by the hash function. It is also preferable that the compound is formed. Thereby, the reliability of information can be further improved. An example of the operation flow is shown in FIG.
Shown in

In this embodiment, as shown in FIG. 3A, the encrypting unit 20 compresses the identification information obtained by the information obtaining unit 18 by using a hash function to generate a message digest (hereinafter, referred to as MD). The MD is encrypted with a secret key, and the encrypted MD is sent to the information recording unit 34 as encryption information (encrypted MD). As described above, the identification information is also sent from the information acquisition unit 18 to the information recording unit 34, and the information recording unit 34 records both the encrypted MD and the identification information in the semiconductor memory 16. As a hash function, for example, MD-
5, publicly known ones such as SHA-1 and RIPEMD-160 can be used.

On the other hand, the ink tank 10 is
The information reading unit 24 of the printer 32 reads the encrypted MD and the identification information recorded in the semiconductor memory 16 when the ink cartridge is mounted on the ink tank mounting unit 32a. Then, FIG.
As shown in (A), the decryption unit 26 decrypts (decrypts) the encrypted MD using a decryption key or a public key to make it a decrypted MD, and the information confirmation unit 38 makes the information reading unit 24 Is compressed by a hash function into MD. The information confirmation unit 38 confirms whether or not the two MDs match. If the two MDs match properly, the identification information is determined to be appropriate. If the two MDs do not match, the identification information is invalid. As appropriate, the process is performed in the same manner as above.

In the present invention, the identification information is further encrypted by using a secret key or a common key for encrypting and decrypting with the same key, and the MD is generated by encrypting MD with a secret key.
Both D and D may be recorded in the semiconductor memory 16. This mode will be described with reference to FIG.

In the manufacturing process of the ink tank, in this embodiment, the identification information is encrypted with a secret key or a common key to obtain encryption information, and the identification information is compressed by a hash function to obtain an MD. To obtain an encrypted MD, and record both (the encrypted information and the encrypted MD) in the semiconductor memory 16 of the ink tank 10. When both the identification information and the MD are encrypted with a secret key, both secret keys are
They may be the same or different. When the identification information is encrypted by the common key encryption method, there is an advantage that the load of the decryption is light and the decryption time by the printer or a computer system connected thereto is short. Encrypting identification information with a secret key imposes a heavy load on decryption, and places a burden on the printer that decrypts the encryption and the computer system connected to it,
There is also an advantage that the reliability of information can be increased.

In the printer equipped with the ink tank 10, the encryption information is decrypted with a decryption key, that is, a public key or a common key to obtain (temporary) identification information, and this identification information is compressed by a hash function. And MD. On the other hand, the encrypted MD is also decrypted into the MD using the decryption key. Next, both MD
It is checked whether or not they match, and if the two MDs match properly, this identification information is determined to be appropriate. If they do not match, this identification information is determined to be incorrect, and The same processing is performed.

In the above-described embodiment, the ink and the ink tank are mainly stored as the supplies, that is, the ink is stored as the expendable supplies, and the ink is stored as the expendable supplies storage body, and the encryption information is recorded in the ink tank itself (container). Although an inkjet printer using an ink tank having a recording unit will be described as a typical example of an image recording apparatus, the present invention is not limited to this, and as described above, various types, for example, various recording methods The present invention can be applied to an image recording apparatus of various recording materials, and can be used as a material for implementing various recording methods, various recording materials, and other materials used in the image recording apparatus. May be used. That is, the present invention provides various types of non-silver salt type printers such as a serial printing method such as an ink ribbon method, a transfer method such as a thermal transfer method, an electrophotographic method and a sublimation method, a photographing device, and a photo printer for print output. The present invention can be applied to supplies used in various silver halide photographic printers, that is, at least one of a consumable and a consumable supply.

Further, according to the present invention, when an article, for example, a consumables container containing consumables is mounted on the image recording apparatus, an information reading section, a decoding section and an information confirmation section provided in the image recording apparatus are provided. Although a consumable or an article such as a consumable supply container is determined by a determination unit having a unit, the present invention is not limited to this, and before mounting on the image recording apparatus, a separate unit from the image recording apparatus is provided. The determination may be made by a determination unit (consisting of an information reading unit, a decoding unit, and an information checking unit).
Further, the above-described example is directed to a consumable supply itself to be attached to the image recording apparatus and a consumable supply storage unit that stores (contains) the consumable supply as an article of the image recording apparatus. The present invention is not limited to this, and may be intended for a consumable container itself for storing consumables (one that does not store consumables), or before mounting on an image recording apparatus. Alternatively, before transfer to a consumables container to be mounted on the image recording apparatus, it may be intended for a package for packaging consumables or a storage container for storing a packaging container or consumables, and furthermore, The consumables container itself for storing the consumables may be a consumable.

The supplies for the image recording apparatus, the method for determining the supplies for the image recording apparatus, and the method for manufacturing the supplies for the image recording apparatus according to the present invention have been described in detail with reference to various embodiments. The present invention is not limited to the above embodiments, and various improvements and modifications may be made without departing from the spirit of the present invention. Although the encryption method has been described centering on the public key method, the invention is not necessarily limited to this, and a common key encryption method in which encryption and decryption are performed with the same key may be applied instead.

[0051]

As described above in detail, according to the present invention, the expiration date of use has been expired, or an ink tank which is not compatible with the apparatus has been attached to the inkjet printer, or an ink tank which has not been adapted has been used in the inkjet printer. Inappropriate consumables such as use, and improper consumables such as consumables storage are properly prevented from being mounted on the image recording device or from being misused for use in the image recording device. The image recording apparatus such as a printer or a photographing apparatus can stably exhibit a predetermined performance by eliminating image quality deterioration or failure due to use.

[Brief description of the drawings]

FIGS. 1A and 1B are schematic diagrams illustrating an example of an ink tank and an ink jet printer using the present invention.

FIGS. 2A and 2B are schematic diagrams illustrating a flow of an operation in the present invention.

FIGS. 3A and 3B are schematic diagrams illustrating another example of the flow of operation in the present invention.

FIGS. 4A to 4F are diagrams illustrating an example in which a watermark is applied to a trademark.

FIG. 5 is a flowchart illustrating a flow of a method for determining a consumable item or a consumable item container according to the present invention.

[Explanation of symbols]

 DESCRIPTION OF SYMBOLS 10 Ink tank 12, 30 Encryption information provision part 14, 32 (ink jet) printer 16 Semiconductor memory 18 Information acquisition part 20 Encryption part 22, 34 Information recording part 24 Information reading part 26 Decryption part 28, 38 Information confirmation part

 ──────────────────────────────────────────────────続 き Continuing on the front page (72) Inventor Takashi Okuyama 798, Miyadai, Kaisei-cho, Ashigarashimo-gun, Kanagawa F-Term (in reference) 2C056 EB20 EB45 2C061 AQ05 AQ06 BB15 CL10 HJ10 HK11 HV11 HV33 2H077 AA02 AA12 AA33 BA09 DA24 DA32 DB10 GA04

Claims (19)

[Claims] An article to be mounted on an image recording apparatus,
An article for an image recording apparatus, comprising: a recording unit that records encryption information obtained by encrypting identification information about the article. 2. The consumable item according to claim 1, wherein the consumable item is one of a consumable item, a consumable item container for storing the consumable item, and a consumable item container for storing the consumable item in the consumable item container. Articles of the image recording device according to the above. 3. The article according to claim 2, wherein said recording section is provided in at least one of said consumables and said consumables container of said consumables container. 4. The article for an image recording apparatus according to claim 1, wherein said encryption information is encrypted by a public key encryption method. 5. The method according to claim 1, wherein the identification information includes a manufacturing time, a lot number,
5. The information according to claim 1, wherein the information is one or more of a serial number, an expiration date, an initial expiration date, contents, a manufacturer, a model of a corresponding image recording apparatus, a type of an article, an article storage amount, and an article size. Supplies for the image recording apparatus according to the above. 6. The article for an image recording apparatus according to claim 1, wherein identification information corresponding to said encryption information is recorded in said recording section. 7. The article for an image recording apparatus according to claim 6, wherein the identification information corresponding to the encryption information is recorded together with the encryption information as compressed information. 8. The article for an image recording apparatus according to claim 1, wherein said encryption information is encrypted after compressing said identification information. 9. A compressed encryption information which is obtained by compressing the identification information and then encrypted in addition to the encryption information.
An article for an image recording apparatus according to any one of claims 1 to 8. 10. The article for an image recording apparatus according to claim 7, wherein said compression is performed using a hash function. 11. When determining a product to be mounted on an image recording apparatus, at least one of the encrypted identification information of the product and the identification information of the product encrypted after being compressed is replaced with the image. An image recording apparatus for decoding with a decoding key possessed by a recording apparatus or a computer system connected thereto and using the information obtained by decoding to judge whether or not the article is appropriate; How to judge items. 12. The encrypted identification information of the article is identification information of the article encrypted with a key different from the decryption key, and the identification information of the article encrypted after being compressed. The method of claim 11, wherein the identification information is identification information of the article that has been compressed and encrypted with a key different from the decryption key. 13. The apparatus according to claim 11, wherein when it is determined that the article is inappropriate, at least one of issuing a warning and switching to a state where the article cannot be used is performed. 13. The method for determining an article of an image recording apparatus according to item 12. 14. The consumable item according to claim 11, wherein the consumable item is one of a consumable item, a consumable item container for storing the consumable item, and a consumable item container for storing the consumable item in the consumable item container. 14. The method for determining an article of an image recording apparatus according to any one of claims 13 to 13. 15. The method according to claim 14, wherein the recording unit is provided in at least one of the consumables and the consumables container of the consumables storage body. 16. An article to be mounted on an image recording apparatus, wherein at least one of encryption information obtained by encrypting the identification information of the article and compressed encryption information obtained by compressing the identification information of the article and then encrypting the information. A method for manufacturing an article for an image recording apparatus, comprising: 17. The encryption information is encryption information obtained by encrypting the identification information with a key different from a decryption key, and the compressed encryption information is the same as the decryption key after compressing the identification information. 17. The method according to claim 16, wherein the information is compressed encryption information encrypted with a different key. 18. The consumable item according to claim 16, wherein the consumable item is one of a consumable item, a consumable item container for storing the consumable item, and a consumable item container for storing the consumable item in the consumable item container. Or a method for manufacturing an article for an image recording apparatus according to item 17. 19. The method according to claim 18, wherein the recording unit is provided in at least one of the consumables and the consumables container of the consumables storage body.