Method for manufacturing a lithographic printing plate precursor having a patterned back layer

1. A method for manufacturing a lithographic printing plate precursor, the method comprising the steps of:

providing a support as a web, the support including a front side and a back side;

coating an image recording layer on the front side of the support; and

depositing a non-continuous back layer on the back side of the support according to a predefined image the predefined image including a cutting scheme defining predefined cutting edges of the lithographic printing plate precursor; and

slicing and cutting the web along the predefined cutting edges;

wherein the non-continuous back layer has a lower average surface coverage in sections within 1 cm of the predefined cutting edges than in neighboring sections of the web.

2. The method according to claim 1 , wherein the step of depositing the non-continuous back layer comprises the steps of:

(i) applying a curable liquid with a depositing technique selected from the group consisting of ink jet printing, valve jet printing, and aerosol jetting; and

(ii) at least partially curing the applied curable liquid.

3. The method according to claim 2 , wherein the at least partially cured applied curable liquid has a Shore A hardness of 90 or less.

4. The method according to claim 2 , wherein the curable liquid applied in the applying step is cured by ultra violet light or electron beam radiation.

5. The method according to claim 4 , wherein the predefined image includes a regular pattern of dots, lines, voids, or a combination thereof; and

the regular pattern does not coincide with the predefined cutting edges.

6. The method according to claim 4 , wherein the predefined image includes randomly distributed dots, lines, voids, or a combination thereof.

7. The method according to claim 2 , wherein the curable liquid applied in the applying step is a phase-change liquid that is cured by ultra violet light.

8. The method according to claim 2 , further comprising the step of:

depositing and curing droplets of the curable liquid on the at least partially cured droplets by repeating steps (i) and (ii).

9. The method according to claim 2 , wherein the predefined image includes a regular pattern of dots, lines, voids, or a combination thereof; and

the regular pattern does not coincide with the predefined cutting edges.

10. The method according to claim 2 , wherein the predefined image includes randomly distributed dots, lines, voids, or a combination thereof.

11. The method according to claim 1 , wherein the non-continuous back layer includes a plurality of dots, lines, voids, or a combination thereof.

12. The method according to claim 1 , wherein one or more continuous layers are applied between the non-continuous back layer and the back side of the support.

13. The method according to claim 1 , wherein the predefined image includes a regular pattern of dots, lines, voids, or a combination thereof; and

the regular pattern does not coincide with the predefined cutting edges.

14. The method according to claim 1 , wherein the predefined image includes randomly distributed dots, lines, voids, or a combination thereof.

15. The method according to claim 1 , wherein the non-continuous back layer has a lower average weight in the sections within 1 cm of the predefined cutting edges than in the neighboring sections of the web.

16. The method according to claim 1 , further comprising the steps of:

stacking printing plate precursor sheets obtained by the step of slicing and cutting the web to define a stack of printing plate precursor sheets; and

re-cutting the stack of printing plate precursor sheets.