Patent ID: 7359085

Claim:
A sound recording and image forming system, comprising: a memory circuit for storage of data; a print engine that applies printing material to sheets of print media that are pre-cut to a predetermined size and fed to said print engine as needed upon the occurrence of a print job; a microphone; an interface circuit; and at least one processing circuit that is configured to control a flow of data: (a) from said interface circuit, and (b) between said print engine and said memory circuit; wherein: said microphone generates an audio-frequency signal from received sound waves; said interface circuit receives and converts said audio-frequency signal generated by said microphone into a digitized first data signal, wherein at least a portion of said digitized first data signal comprises information representative of said received sound waves in a form that can be stored in said memory circuit; and said at least one processing circuit is further configured: (c) to receive said digitized first data signal from said interface circuit, (d) to convert said digitized first data signal into a second data signal comprising a print job that includes information representative of said received sound waves, and (e) to transfer said second data signal to said print engine for recording as a hard-copy printout upon said print media, in which at least a portion of said hard-copy printout is representative of said received sound waves, wherein (a) said portion of said hard-copy printout that is representative of said received sound waves comprises encoded dot patterns that do not form text characters, but instead said encoded dot patterns correspond to the received sound waves without regard to whether or not the received sound waves form spoken words; and (b) said encoded dot patterns that correspond to the received sound waves are printed on a surface area of said print media that does not contain other image data that is to be viewed by a person.