Patent ID: 7832635

Claim:
A controller for controlling an image forming apparatus which performs job process operations including at least one of (a) an image reading operation for reading a book so as to acquire image data and (b) an image forming operation for forming an image indicated by the image data on a sheet, said controller comprising: user information acquiring means for acquiring, from an outside source, user information indicating a user who uses the image forming apparatus; information acquiring means for acquiring information including book information of the book, owner information indicating an owner of the book, allowance frequency information indicating frequency with which the job process operation performed with respect to the book is allowed, cumulative frequency information indicating cumulative frequency with which the job process operation has been performed with respect to the book, and date and time information indicating when the job process operation has been performed with respect to the book, each of which is stored in a wireless tag attached to the book; owner information judging means for judging whether the owner information is included or not in the information acquired by the information acquiring means; operation allowance means for (i) comparing the owner information with the user information in the case where the owner information is included so as to allow the job process operation when the owner information is identical with the user information and so as not to allow the job process operation when the owner information is not identical with the user information and (ii) not allowing the job process operation in the case where the user information is not included; frequency acquiring means for acquiring the cumulative frequency from the information acquired by the information acquiring means; date and time information acquiring means for acquiring latest data and time information out of the information acquired by information acquiring means; frequency updating means for updating the cumulative frequency information stored in the wireless tag in accordance with the frequency with which the job process operation has been performed with respect to the book; and date and time updating means for updating the date and time information stored in the wireless tag in accordance with when the job process operation has been performed with respect to the book, wherein: out of the information stored in the wireless tag, the book information, the owner information, and the allowance frequency information are stored so as to be unrewriteable by the user, and even when the owner information is identical with the user information, the operation allowance means does not allow the job process operation when the cumulative frequency read out by the frequency acquiring means is not less than a predetermined value and/or when a predetermined time has not passed since a time indicated by the latest date and time information read out by the date and time information acquiring means.