Patent ID: 8189214
Filing Date: 2012-05-29
Classification: H04N

Abstract:
1. An image forming apparatus, comprising: a unique information acquisition unit which acquires first unique information, unique to document data to be a print object, from the document data; a storage unit which stores the acquired first unique information as reference unique information in association with the document data; an image forming unit which prints an image based on the document data and an image based on second unique information associated with the document data on a same recording medium, wherein the second unique information is generated during print processing after the first unique information is acquired; a reading unit which reads the second unique information of the printed image as unique information to be compared; and a control unit which compares the second unique information to be compared, which is read by the reading unit, with the reference unique information, which is stored in the storage unit, to stop printing of the document data when the control unit judges that the second unique information to be compared and the reference unique information do not accord with each other, wherein when print condition information instructing a given print condition of the document data is input: (i) the unique information acquisition unit acquires first new unique information which is generated based on the first unique information and the print condition information (ii) the storage unit stores the first new unique information as the reference unique information, and (iii) the image forming unit prints an image based on second new unique information and an image based on the document data on the same recording medium, wherein the second new unique information is generated during the print processing based on the second unique information and the print condition information; and wherein the image forming unit prints the image based on the second unique information or the image based on the second new unique information in a margin area of the recording medium.