US Patent 7364265 Printhead with enhanced ink supply to elongate printhead IC ends

A printhead that has a printhead integrated circuit (IC) (68) which is elongate and has an array of nozzles for ejecting ink. The printhead also has a support structure 176 for supporting the printhead IC and having ink outlets 186 for supplying the array of nozzles with ink. The ink outlets are spaced along the printhead IC such that the ink outlet spacing (210, 212) decreases at the ends of the printhead IC. By increasing the number of ink outlets near the end regions, the ink supply is enhanced to compensate for the slower priming of the end nozzles. This, in turn, makes the whole nozzle array prime more consistently to avoid flooding and ink wastage from early priming nozzles (or alternatively, unprimed end nozzles).