63fb46d6_bster_US___Patent_applications__Description
[Patent application number] 20100088201 [Published] 04-08-2010 [Description] 
SYSTEM AND METHOD FOR DETERMINING A BILLING STRATEGY FOR DOCUMENTS BASED ON COLOR ESTIMATIONS IN AN IMAGE PATH - Disclosed herein is a method and system for determining a billing structure for outputting documents using an image processing apparatus. If image data of the document includes color pixels, a billing structure is determined based on an estimated total color pixel count. The color pixels of the image data are counted in a device independent space and the total color pixel count of the image data to be output in a device dependent space is estimated. Based on the estimation, a billing structure is chosen. Processing and determining a billing structure based on image data in the device independent space avoids charging a customer for color print job when only a small amount of color pixels are printed. It also encourages determining charges independently of the marking engine or output device.
Xing Li, Webster US - Patent applications