Notice of Pre-AIA or AIA Status
The present application, filed on or after March 16, 2013, is being examined under the first inventor to file provisions of the AIA .
Response to Arguments
Applicant’s arguments with respect to claim(s) 1-14, 21-22 have been considered but are moot because the new ground of rejection does not rely on any reference applied in the prior rejection of record for any teaching or matter specifically challenged in the argument.
Claim Rejections - 35 USC § 103
In the event the determination of the status of the application as subject to AIA 35 U.S.C. 102 and 103 (or as subject to pre-AIA 35 U.S.C. 102 and 103) is incorrect, any correction of the statutory basis (i.e., changing from AIA to pre-AIA ) for the rejection will not be considered a new ground of rejection if the prior art relied upon, and the rationale supporting the rejection, would be the same under either status.
The following is a quotation of 35 U.S.C. 103 which forms the basis for all obviousness rejections set forth in this Office action:
A patent for a claimed invention may not be obtained, notwithstanding that the claimed invention is not identically disclosed as set forth in section 102, if the differences between the claimed invention and the prior art are such that the claimed invention as a whole would have been obvious before the effective filing date of the claimed invention to a person having ordinary skill in the art to which the claimed invention pertains. Patentability shall not be negated by the manner in which the invention was made.
Claim(s) 1, 2, 6, 21 is/are rejected under 35 U.S.C. 103 as being unpatentable over US 20130021636 to Varga in view of JP 2001154894 to Aoyanagi further in view US 5524186 to Campbell.
Regarding claim 1, Varga discloses a method for managing printing operations, the method comprising (paragraph 27; method 400 for managing printing):
receiving a print job having a plurality of pages (paragraph 17; receiving print job having pages);
rendering at least one page of a first set of pages of the plurality of pages of the print job using a raster image processing (RIP) system (paragraph 25-26; page rasterizer (raster image processing) performs rendering of each page of print jobs having n-up logical pages (first set of pages));
storing the rendered at least one page of the first set of pages in a memory at a printing device receiving the print job (paragraph 18, 28; rasterized pages of logical pages are stored in solid state memory 110 of printer that received print job);
determining that the memory is not available (paragraph 30; solid state memory 110 is full (not available));
rendering at least one page of a second set of pages of the plurality of pages of the print job using the RIP system (paragraph 30; when solid state memory 110 is full, the next rasterized pages of logical pages (second set of pages) are rendered using page rasterizer); and
storing the rendered least one page of the second set of pages in a first storage drive accessible by the printing device (paragraph 17-18, 30; next rasterized pages of logical pages are stored in the hard disk 114 (first storage drive) accessible by print controller 104 of printer).
Varga discloses storage drives accessible by the printing device. However Varga does not disclose a first storage drive of a hierarchy of storage drives accessible by the device; wherein the first storage drive has a higher capacity than the memory.
Aoyanagi discloses a first storage drive of a hierarchy of storage drives accessible by the device (paragraph 26, 41; hard disk 18 (first storage drive) of hierarchy of storage devices accessible by PC); wherein the first storage drive has a higher capacity than the memory (paragraph 41-42; hard disk 18 (first storage drive) has higher capacity than cache memory).
It would have been obvious to one of ordinary skill in the art at the time of the invention was made to modify the system of Varga as taught by Aoyanagi to provide system having hierarchy of storage drives.
The motivation to combine the references is to provide fast data access memory hierarchy system for searching data that stores frequently used data in the faster memory separate from management data so as to reduce the access to the slow second storage of hierarchy of storage drives (paragraph 9-10, 33).
Varga discloses storing the rendered least one page of the second set of pages in a first storage drive accessible by the printing device (paragraph 17-18, 30; next rasterized pages of logical pages are stored in the hard disk 114 (first storage drive) accessible by print controller 104 of printer). However Varga does not disclose determining that the at least one page of the second set of pages is complex; storing the rendered least one page of the second set of pages.
Campbell discloses determining that the at least one page of the second set of pages is complex (column 4, lines 20-25, 30-34; determination of whether one page having page strips exceeds strip complexity factor; column 5, lines 26-32; column 3, lines 7-15; plurality of print commands for pages received including second set of pages); storing the rendered least one page of the second set of pages (column 4, lines 7-14; rasterized page strips that exceed strip complexity factor are stored in supplemental memory 42).
It would have been obvious to one of ordinary skill in the art at the time of the invention was made to modify the system of Varga as taught by Campbell to provide determination of complex pages.
The motivation to combine the references is to void overrun associated with printing by immediately rasterizing complex pages for storage (column 2, lines 15-21).
Regarding claim 2, Varga discloses the method of claim 1, where in the first storage drive is a solid state drive or a hard disk drive (paragraph 17-18, 30; next rasterized pages of logical pages are stored in the hard disk 114 (first storage drive)).
Regarding claim 6, Varga disclose the method of claim 1, further comprising notifying a front end within the RIP system that the at least one page of the first set of pages are stored in the memory (paragraph 28; when a page is rasterized and stored in solid state memory 110, it notifies control system 306 (front end) in the system including rasterizer 308 by sending Page_delimited message).
Regarding claim 21, Campbell discloses the method of claim 1, wherein storing the rendered at least one page of the second set of pages includes storing the rendered at least one page of the second set of pages in the first storage drive based on the determination that the rendered at least one page of the second set of pages is complex (column 4, lines 20-25, 30-34; determination of whether one page having page strips exceeds strip complexity factor; column 4, lines 7-14; rasterized page strips that exceed strip complexity factor are stored in supplemental memory 42). Further Varga discloses storing the rendered at least one page of the second set of pages in the first storage drive (paragraph 17-18, 30; next rasterized pages of logical pages are stored in the hard disk 114 (first storage drive) accessible by print controller 104 of printer).
Claim(s) 3-5 is/are rejected under 35 U.S.C. 103 as being unpatentable over US 20130021636 to Varga in view of JP 2001154894 to Aoyanagi further in view US 5524186 to Campbell further in view US 20170286008 to Kim.
Regarding claim 3, Varga does not disclose the method of claim 2, further comprising determining that the first storage drive is not available.
Kim discloses further comprising determining that the first storage drive is not available (paragraph 118-122; determined that SSD (first storage drive) is full (not available)).
It would have been obvious to one of ordinary skill in the art at the time of the invention was made to modify the system of Varga as taught by Kim to provide determination of availability of first storage drive.
The motivation to combine the references is to provide in a system of storage drive hierarchy having three levels of storage drives a determination of availability of first storage drive such as being full state since data can be written in the second storage drive level when first storage is full (paragraph 122).
Regarding claim 4, Varga discloses the method of claim 3, further comprising rendering at least one page of a third set of pages of the plurality of pages of the print job using the RIP system (paragraph 25-26; in nup printing each sheet side image has set of pages; for print job having nup printing on plurality of sheets, the third sheet includes third set of logical pages to be rasterized).
Regarding claim 5, Varga discloses the method of claim 4, further comprising storing the rendered at least one page of the third set of pages in a storage drive of the hierarch of storage drives accessible by the printing device (paragraph 25-26; in nup printing each sheet side image has set of pages; for print job having nup printing on plurality of sheets, the third sheet includes third set of logical pages to be rasterized and stored in either solid state memory or hard disk). Varga discloses storing rendered pages. Further Kim discloses storing the data in a second storage drive of the hierarchy of storage drives, wherein the second storage drive has a higher capacity than the memory (paragraph 118-122; hierarchy of storage include memory, SSD (first storage), HDD (second storage); if memory and first storage SSD are full, then the data is stored in second storage HDD which is higher capacity than memory).
Claim(s) 7-8 is/are rejected under 35 U.S.C. 103 as being unpatentable over US 20130021636 to Varga in view of JP 2001154894 to Aoyanagi further in view US 5524186 to Campbell further in view of US 20130141759 to Morita.
Regarding claim 7, Varga does not disclose the method of claim 6, further comprising determining, by the front end, that the least one page of the first set of pages is printed.
Morita discloses comprising determining, by the front end, that the least one page of the first set of pages is printed (paragraph 42, 47-48; page printing controller 470 (front end) determines by notification that page has printed).
It would have been obvious to one of ordinary skill in the art at the time of the invention was made to modify the system of Varga as taught by Morita to provide notification about pages printed.
The motivation to combine the references is to release portion of the memory storing the pages upon determination of page being printed thereby freeing space in memory to store more pages (paragraph 48).
Regarding claim 8, Morita discloses the method of claim 7, further comprising deleting the at least one page of the first set of pages from the memory (paragraph 47-48; page printing controller 470 deletes via page printer 471 the page from RAM 303 after notification that the page has printed).
Claim(s) 9 is/are rejected under 35 U.S.C. 103 as being unpatentable over US 20130021636 to Varga in view of JP 2001154894 to Aoyanagi further in view US 5524186 to Campbell further in view of JP 2017087583 to Ishibashi.
Regarding claim 9, Varga does not disclose the method of claim 1, further comprising discarding the at least one page of the first set of pages if a rendering time for the at least one page of the first set of pages is less than a threshold.
Ishibashi discloses further comprising discarding the at least one page of the first set of pages if a rendering time for the at least one page of the first set of pages is less than a threshold (paragraph 59; if RIP time for a page of the set of pages is less than “print preparation time” (threshold), then the RIP for that page is deleted from HDD).
It would have been obvious to one of ordinary skill in the art at the time of the invention was made to modify the system of Varga as taught by Ishibashi to provide discarding of rendered pages based on rendering time.
The motivation to combine the references is to provide efficient and fast reprinting of print jobs by storing raster time for each page in memory and deleting the pages having short raster time based on preparation time in order to decrease the memory usage and thereby provide efficient reprinting of the job (paragraph 7-8).
Claim(s) 10-11, 22 is/are rejected under 35 U.S.C. 103 as being unpatentable over US 20130021636 to Varga in view of JP 2001154894 to Aoyanagi further in view US 20130141759 to Morita further in view US 5524186 to Campbell.
Regarding claim 10, Varga discloses a method for managing printing operations, the method comprising (paragraph 27; method 400 for managing printing):
rendering at least one page of a first set of pages and at least one page of a second set of pages of a print job by a raster image processing (RIP) system (paragraph 25-26; page rasterizer (raster image processing) performs rendering of each page of print jobs having n-up logical pages (first set of pages) for a sheet side image; page rasterizer (raster image processing) performs rendering of each page of print jobs having n-up logical pages (second set of pages) of a second sheet side image);
storing the rendered at least one page of the first set of pages in a memory accessible by the RIP system (paragraph 18, 28; rasterized pages of logical pages are stored in solid state memory 110 of printer that received print job);
determining that the memory is not available (paragraph 30; solid state memory 110 is full (not available));
storing the rendered least one page of the second set of pages in a first storage drive accessible by the RIP system (paragraph 17-18, 30; next rasterized pages of logical pages are stored in the hard disk 114 (first storage drive) accessible by rasterizer 108);
deleting the at least one page of the first set of pages from the memory; and
storing further rendered pages of the print job in the memory (paragraph 30; if side is in progress while solid state memory is full, and then it receives side complete, the rasterized completed pages are deleted from solid state memory; after freeing memory it can store next rasterized pages in the solid state memory).
However Varga does not disclose a first storage drive of a hierarchy of storage drives accessible by the device, wherein the first storage drive has a higher capacity than the memory.
Aoyanagi discloses a first storage drive of a hierarchy of storage drives accessible by the device (paragraph 26, 41; hard disk 18 (first storage drive) of hierarchy of storage devices accessible by PC), wherein the first storage drive has a higher capacity than the memory (paragraph 41-42; hard disk 18 (first storage drive) has higher capacity than cache memory).
It would have been obvious to one of ordinary skill in the art at the time of the invention was made to modify the system of Varga as taught by Aoyanagi to provide system having hierarchy of storage drives.
The motivation to combine the references is to provide fast data access memory hierarchy system for searching data that stores frequently used data in the faster memory separate from management data so as to reduce the access to the slow second storage of hierarchy of storage drives (paragraph 9-10, 33).
However Varga does not disclose
determining that the at least one page of the first set of pages stored in the memory is printed by the printing device;
deleting the at least one page of the first set of pages from the memory.
Morita discloses determining that the at least one page of the first set of pages stored in the memory is printed by the printing device (paragraph 42, 47-48; page printing controller 470 (front end) determines by notification that page stored in RAM 303 has printed out of all pages);
deleting the at least one page of the first set of pages from the memory
(paragraph 47-48; page printing controller 470 deletes via page printer 471 the page from RAM 303 after notification that the page has printed).
It would have been obvious to one of ordinary skill in the art at the time of the invention was made to modify the system of Varga as taught by Morita to provide notification about pages printed.
The motivation to combine the references is to release portion of the memory storing the pages upon determination of page being printed normally thereby freeing space in memory to store more pages since the printed page is no longer needed (paragraph 48).
Varga discloses storing the rendered least one page of the second set of pages in a first storage drive accessible by the RIP system (paragraph 17-18, 30; next rasterized pages of logical pages are stored in the hard disk 114 (first storage drive) accessible by rasterizer 108). However Varga does not disclose determining that the at least one page of the second set of pages is complex; storing the rendered least one page of the second set of pages.
Campbell discloses determining that the at least one page of the second set of pages is complex (column 4, lines 20-25, 30-34; determination of whether one page having page strips exceeds strip complexity; column 5, lines 26-32; column 3, lines 7-15; plurality of print commands for pages received including second set of pages) storing the rendered least one page of the second set of pages (column 4, lines 7-14; rasterized page strips that exceed strip complexity factor are stored in supplemental memory 42)..
It would have been obvious to one of ordinary skill in the art at the time of the invention was made to modify the system of Varga as taught by Campbell to provide determination of complex pages.
The motivation to combine the references is to void overrun associated with printing by immediately rasterizing complex pages for storage (column 2, lines 15-21).
Regarding claim 11, Varga discloses the method of claim 10, further comprising notifying a front end of the RIP system that the rendered at least one page of the first set of pages is stored in the memory and that the rendered at least one page of the second set of pages is stored in the first storage drive (paragraph 28; when a first or second set of page is rasterized and stored in either solid state memory 110 (memory) and hard disk (first storage drive), it notifies control system 306 (front end) in the system including rasterizer 308 by sending Page_delimited message that includes location in memory 110 or hard disk 114).
Regarding claim 22, Campbell discloses the method of claim 10, wherein storing the rendered at least one page of the second set of pages includes storing the rendered at least one page of the second set of pages in the first storage drive based on the determination that the rendered at least one page of the second set of pages is complex (column 4, lines 20-25, 30-34; determination of whether one page having page strips exceeds strip complexity factor; column 4, lines 7-14; rasterized page strips that exceed strip complexity factor are stored in supplemental memory 42). Further Varga discloses storing the rendered at least one page of the second set of pages in the first storage drive (paragraph 17-18, 30; next rasterized pages of logical pages are stored in the hard disk 114 (first storage drive) accessible by print controller 104 of printer).
Claim(s) 12 is/are rejected under 35 U.S.C. 103 as being unpatentable over US 20130021636 to Varga in view of JP 2001154894 to Aoyanagi further in view US 20130141759 to Morita further in view US 5524186 to Campbell further in view JP 2011143694 to Tao.
Regarding claim 12, Varga does not disclose the method of claim 11, further comprising pulling the at least one page of the first set of pages to be printed by an engine manager of the RIP system, wherein the front end instructs the engine manager that the at least one page of the first set of pages is stored in the memory.
Tao discloses further comprising pulling the at least one page of the first set of pages to be printed by an engine manager of the RIP system, wherein the front end instructs the engine manager that the at least one page of the first set of pages is stored in the memory (paragraph 26, 33, 36, 42, 47; module 31b of controller 31 (front end) instructs the engine controller (engine manager) to print page stored in memory; engine controller 32 pulls the first page from memory; drawing means 31a (rasterizing system)).
It would have been obvious to one of ordinary skill in the art at the time of the invention was made to modify the system of Varga as taught by Tao to provide instruction to engine controller when page is stored.
The motivation to combine the references is to speed up printing by providing an engine controller that can pull the page data for printing at the earliest available time such as when it is stored in the memory and further provide engine controller that can provide efficient memory by deleting the page from memory upon finish of printing of page (paragraph 42-47).
Claim(s) 13-14 is/are rejected under 35 U.S.C. 103 as being unpatentable over US 20130021636 to Varga in view of JP 2001154894 to Aoyanagi further in view US 20130141759 to Morita further in view US 5524186 to Campbell further in view JP 2011143694 to Tao further in view of JP 2004054246 to Serizawa.
Regarding claim 13, Varga does not disclose the method of claim 12, further comprising notifying the engine manager that the at least one page of the first set of pages is printed by a print engine of the printing device.
Serizawa discloses further comprising notifying the engine manager that the at least one page of the first set of pages is printed by a print engine of the printing device (paragraph 27, 37-38, 46; engine control unit 302 (engine manager) is notified of sheet discharge signal associated with printing a page on sheet by printer engine based on discharge sensor).
It would have been obvious to one of ordinary skill in the art at the time of the invention was made to modify the system of Varga as taught by Serizawa to provide notification to engine manager about page printing.
The motivation to combine the references is to provide notification to the engine controller when printed page is going to be discharged including notification about whether optional stacking device is connected to printer such that signal can be output to control the discharge (paragraph 49-53).
Regarding claim 14, Serizawa discloses the method of claim 13, further comprising notifying the front end by the engine manager that the at least one page of the first set of pages is printed (paragraph 38; controller 301 (front end) is notified by the engine control unit 302 of the sheet discharge signal (printing of a page)).
Other Prior Art Cited
14. The prior art made of record and not relied upon is considered pertinent to applicant's disclosure.
US 20130050742 to Ward.
US 6480295 to Taoda.
Conclusion
Applicant's amendment necessitated the new ground(s) of rejection presented in this Office action. Accordingly, THIS ACTION IS MADE FINAL. See MPEP § 706.07(a). Applicant is reminded of the extension of time policy as set forth in 37 CFR 1.136(a).
A shortened statutory period for reply to this final action is set to expire THREE MONTHS from the mailing date of this action. In the event a first reply is filed within TWO MONTHS of the mailing date of this final action and the advisory action is not mailed until after the end of the THREE-MONTH shortened statutory period, then the shortened statutory period will expire on the date the advisory action is mailed, and any extension fee pursuant to 37 CFR 1.136(a) will be calculated from the mailing date of the advisory action. In no event, however, will the statutory period for reply expire later than SIX MONTHS from the date of this final action.
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Patent Examiner
Beniyam Menberu
/BENIYAM MENBERU/Primary Examiner, Art Unit 2681
12/12/2025