Patent 7136089 was granted and assigned to Lexmark International, Inc. on November, 2006 by the United States Patent and Trademark Office.
The number of pages of a print job received at printer (10) is determined (256). If the number of pages is low, printing is conducted at intermediate speed (262). If the number of pages is higher, printing is conducted at high speed (254). If the number of pages is not known, a default is selected (260). The default often will be to print at intermediate speed because most jobs are short. If high speed printing is in progress when a job is received, the next job is printed at high speed (254). Alternatively, a predetermined number of the first pages of a job may be printed at intermediate speed.