RFID tag and printer system

• US 7,066,667 B2
• Filed: 08/18/2005
• Issued: 06/27/2006
• Est. Priority Date: 09/12/2003
• Status: Active Grant

• Current Assignee: TSC Auto ID Technology Co., Ltd.
• Original Assignee: Printronix
• Inventors: Schumaker, Richard E., Harkins, James P., Chapman, Theodore A., Edwards, Andrew W., Jarvis, Bradley S., Morris, Stephen S.
• Primary Examiner(s): CHAU, MINH H
• Application Number:
  US11/206,420
• Publication Number:
  US 20050276647A1
• Time in Patent Office: 313 Days
• Field of Search: 400/61, 400/62, 400/70, 400/76, 101/4, 101/35, 340/572.1, 340/572.4, 3405726-572, 340/825.69, 340/825.72, 343/702, 343/742, 343/850, 343/866
• US Class Current: 400/76
• CPC Class Codes: B41J 11/0095 Detecting means for copy material, e.g. for detecting or sensing presence of copy material or its leading or trailing end
• CPC Class Codes: B41J 3/4075 Tape printers; Label printers
• CPC Class Codes: B41J 3/44 Typewriters or selective printing mechanisms having dual functions or combined with, or coupled to, apparatus performing other functions
• CPC Class Codes: G06K 17/0025 the arrangement consisting of a wireless interrogation device in combination with a device for optically marking the record carrier
• CPC Class Codes: G06K 19/07749 the record carrier being capable of non-contact communication, e.g. constructional details of the antenna of a non-contact smart card
• CPC Class Codes: G06K 5/02 the verifying forming a part of the marking action
• CPC Class Codes: G06K 7/10316 using at least one antenna particularly designed for interrogating the wireless record carriers antennas in general H01Q1/22
• CPC Class Codes: G06K 7/10346 the antenna being of the far field type, e.g. HF types or dipoles

Abstract

An RFID label with embedded tag is passed through an RFID antenna in a printer system, where the RFID antenna allows a roll of such labels to pass in close proximity to the antenna and still allow each individual RFID tag to be read and/or programmed. The RFID antenna has a rectangular RF field spreader in contact with a triangular divergent RF conductor with an RF source point at the point. Ground planes are located on either side of the antenna. In another embodiment, the printer system extracts or parses bar code commands from a data stream and passes the commands to both a printer and an RFID reader to print the image and program the tag with the bar code information.

Claims

1. A printing system, comprising:

a host computer, wherein the host computer is capable of transmitting a data stream using a first programming language; and

a printer system, comprising;

an extractor coupled to receive the data stream, wherein the extractor extracts a first portion of the data stream and generates RFID commands from the first portion;

a parser coupled to the extractor, wherein the parser parses image portions from RFID portions of the first portion of the data stream;

an image formatter coupled to receive the image portions from the parser;

an RFID data formatter coupled to receive the RFID portions from the parser;

a print sub-system coupled to the image formatter for printing an image on a label; and

an RFID system coupled to the RFID data formatter for programming data on an RFID tag in the label.

2. The printing system of claim 1, wherein the first programming language is different than the programming language from the printer system.

3. The printing system of claim 1, wherein the first portion is bar code commands.

4. The printing system of claim 3, wherein the extractor generates an RFID command from bar code data.

5. The printing system of claim 1, wherein the extractor is a character substitution table.

6. The printing system of claim 1, wherein the print sub-system comprises a thermal print head.

7. A method of processing an label with an RFID tag, comprising:

receiving, from a host computer, a data stream in a programming language;

extracting a first portion from the data stream;

formatting at least part of the first portion into an RFID command;

programming bar code data into the RFID tag using the formatted portion; and

printing the label using commands from the first portion of the data stream.

8. The method of claim 7, wherein the first portion are bar code commands.

9. The method of claim 7, further comprising parsing the RFID command to an RFID system and at least a portion of the data stream to a printer portion.

10. The method of claim 9, wherein the printer portion includes a thermal print head.

11. The method of claim 9, wherein the programming language is different than the programming language of the printer portion.