Patent ID: 8310698
Filing Date: 2012-11-13
Classification: G03G,G06F,H04N

Abstract:
1. An image forming apparatus comprising: an internal memory that stores therein data about the image forming apparatus including internal model data and setting data; an external-memory control unit that receives and transmits apparatus data from and to an external memory; an apparatus-data determining unit that determines whether the apparatus data received by the external-memory control unit from the external memory is data that has been stored in the external memory by another apparatus having a same model type as that of the image forming apparatus; an activation determining unit that determines whether to activate the image forming apparatus on the basis of the apparatus data received from the external memory when the apparatus-data determining unit determines that the apparatus data is the data that has been stored in the external memory by the another apparatus having the same model type; a memory control unit that stores the apparatus data in the internal memory when the activation determining unit determines not to activate the image forming apparatus on the basis of the apparatus data received by the external memory; and an activating unit that activates the image forming apparatus on the basis of the activation determining unit determining to activate the image forming apparatus, wherein the external memory is a removable non-volatile memory card which is configured to be connected to either the image forming apparatus or the another apparatus, and the external-memory control unit receives the apparatus data from the external memory when the external memory is connected to the image forming apparatus.