Patent ID: 7422302

Claim:
A liquid injection apparatus comprising: a liquid container having a memory element which stores information about retained liquid; a carriage mounting said liquid container and having a liquid injection head which injects said liquid; a moving mechanism which moves said carriage; an acquisition device that acquires the information stored in said memory element of the liquid container mounted on the carriage and information stored in a memory element which is provided in a replacement liquid container replaceable with the liquid container mounted on the carriage and stores information about retained liquid, wherein a first communication section is connected to each memory element, and wherein the acquisition device has a second communicaton section communicatable with each first communication section in a non-contact manner for acquiring the information stored in each memory element; a determining section which determines whether or not to replace said liquid container mounted on said carriage with said replacement liquid container, based on the information acquired by said acquisition device; and a control section which controls said moving mechanism in such a way as to move said carriage to a replacement position from a standby position in the case where said determining section has determined that replacement with said replacement liquid container should be performed.