Patent ID: 8295719

Claim:
An image processing apparatus, comprising: an image forming unit configured to form a toner image on a surface of an image carrier using a developing unit; a toner supply unit configured to supply toner from a toner storage unit to the developing unit; a transfer unit configured to transfer the toner image from the image carrier onto a recording sheet to generate a printed sheet; a toner collecting unit configured to collect residual toner that resides on the surface of the image carrier after transferring of the toner image, and to accumulate the residual toner into a collected toner container; and a controller unit configured to control an image forming job of generating the printed sheet, the controller unit further configured to: obtain a supplied toner amount indicating an amount of toner supplied by the toner supply unit to the developing unit; obtain a total number of printed sheets generated by the image forming unit and the transfer unit; calculate an average number of printed sheets per image forming job; calculate an average printing ratio indicating an average of printing ratios of the printed sheets, based on the supplied toner amount, the total number of printed sheets, and the average number of printed sheets per image forming job; calculate a collected toner amount indicating an amount of toner accumulated in the collected toner container based on the average number of printed sheets per image forming job and the average printing ratio; compare the collected toner amount with a threshold value to generate a comparison result; and cause the image forming unit to stop forming of the toner image when the comparison result indicates that the collected toner amount exceeds the threshold value.