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) 1-10 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 is/are rejected under 35 U.S.C. 103 as being unpatentable over US 20170026538 to Okada in view of US 20130050742 to Ward further in view of US 5524186 to Campbell.
Regarding claim 1, Okada discloses a method for managing printing operations, the method comprising (paragraph 71; flowchart for managing printing of jobs):
receiving a print job having a plurality of pages to be printed at a printing device (paragraph 57, 72; print job including pages received in s1201 at printing apparatus 100);
rendering the plurality of pages using a raster image processing (RIP) system for the printing device (paragraph 35, 73; system including CPU 210 renders (rasterizing/RIP system) all pages of print job);
determining that printing the print job is to be deferred to a subsequent time period depending on a job type of the print job (paragraph 64, 72; in s1202 it is determined if job hold designation is set for the job wherein hold jobs are deferred for printing at later time); and
storing the rendered plurality of pages in a first storage drive of the hierarchy of storage drives accessible by the RIP system according to the job type (paragraph 35, 72, 73; for print jobs having job hold (job type), the rendered pages are stored in HDD 209 which is first hierarchy of storage drives from hierarchy including RAM 208 and HDD 209 that can be accessed by CPU (RIP system) for storing PDL data and rendered data).
However Okada does not disclose creating a hierarchy of storage drives where the plurality of pages is to be stored wherein the first storage drive has a higher capacity storage than a memory accessible by the RIP system.
Ward discloses creating a hierarchy of storage drives where the plurality of pages is to be stored (paragraph 16, 18, 21; hierarchy of storage including fast memory 153 and hard disk type memory 154 (first storage drive) created; paragraph 26-27, 35; rasterized page segments can be stored in either fast memory 153 or hard disk memory 154) wherein the first storage drive has a higher capacity storage than a memory accessible by the RIP system (paragraph 22, 27, 35; hard disk type memory 154 (first storage drive) has higher capacity than fast memory 153 which is memory accessed by the RIP system 152 for storing).
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 Okada as taught by Ward to provide hierarchy of storage drives used for storing rendered pages.
The motivation to combine the references is to provide a faster transfer of rendered pages to the printer unit by selectively storing rendered pages to either fast memory or a slow memory such as hard disk based on transfer time for transferring rendered data from the slow memory to the printer such that some of the rendered data are stored in fast memory and the rest are stored in the slow memory (paragraph 6-7).
Okada discloses first storage drive of the hierarchy of storage drives accessible by the RIP system (paragraph 35, 72, 73; for print jobs having job hold (job type), the rendered pages are stored in HDD 209 which is first hierarchy of storage drives from hierarchy including RAM 208 and HDD 209 that can be accessed by CPU (RIP system)). However Okada does not disclose determining that at least one page of the rendered plurality of pages is a complex page;
storing the rendered plurality of pages in a first storage drive according to the job type based on the determination of the complex page.
Campbell discloses determining that at least one page of the rendered plurality of pages is a complex page (column 2, lines 7-14; column 5, lines 29-32; RET parameter is related to page strip complexity; column 7, lines 48-54, 61-67; column 8, lines 1-4; determination of whether one page having page strips exceeds page strip complexity factor);
storing the rendered plurality of pages in a first storage drive according to the job type based on the determination of the complex page (column 4, lines 10-15; column 7, lines 22-43, 45-53, 62-67; column 8, lines 1-4; if page strip is NOT classified as immediate-mode strip (job type) in step 68 and if RET exceeds threshold (complex page), the rasterized page strips are stored in the supplemental memory 42 (first storage drive) which is part of storage hierarchy including dram 40, 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 Okada as taught by Campbell to determine complexity of page of print job to determine storage.
The motivation to combine the references is to eliminate overrun that can occur with printing by immediately rasterizing pages that have threshold level of complexity and storing the rasterized pages in specific storage (column 2, lines 15-21).
Regarding claim 2, Ward discloses the method of claim 1, wherein the first storage drive is a solid state drive (paragraph 21; memory 154 can be flash type memory (solid state drive)).
Regarding claim 6, Okada discloses the method of claim 1, wherein the first storage drive is a hard disk drive (paragraph 35, 72, 73; for print jobs having job hold (job type), the rendered pages are stored in HDD 209 which is first hierarchy of storage drives).
Claim(s) 3-4 is/are rejected under 35 U.S.C. 103 as being unpatentable over US 20170026538 to Okada in view of US 20130050742 to Ward further in view of US 5524186 to Campbell further in view JP 2014138265 to Eguchi.
Regarding claim 3, Okada does not disclose the method of claim 1, further comprising determining the first storage drive cannot store at least one page of the rendered plurality of pages due to a storage limitation.
Eguchi discloses further comprising determining the first storage drive cannot store at least one page of the rendered plurality of pages due to a storage limitation (paragraph 9, 47, 57; when SSD (First storage) is write-protected (storage limitation) due to max rewriting it cannot store the next raster page data).
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 Okada as taught by Eguchi to provide determination of availability for storage for first storage.
The motivation to combine the references is to provide continuity of the printing of the print job when the first storage has limitation for storing the rendered data by using another storage accessible for storing the rendered pages (paragraph 69-70).
Regarding claim 4, Eguchi discloses the method of claim 3, further comprising
moving to a second storage drive of the hierarchy of storage drives accessible by the RIP system (paragraph 28, 30, 70; when SSD is write protected it moves to the HDD (second storage) of hierarchy of drives that is accessed by CPU of the RIP system),
storing the at least one page of the rendered plurality of pages in the second storage drive (paragraph 69-70; the rendered pages are stored in the HDD). Further Ward discloses that the HDD has a higher storage capacity than the memory accessible by the RIP system (paragraph 22, 27, 35; hard disk type memory 154 (HDD) has higher capacity than fast memory 153 which is memory accessed by the RIP system 152 for storing)).
Examiner is taking official notice that second storage drive which in this case is HDD has a higher storage capacity than the memory accessible by the RIP system.
The motivation is such that the memory accessible by the RIP being smaller than the HDD (second storage) such that it can provide data at high speed which is not possible if the memory had higher capacity than the HDD since higher capacity memories take longer to retrieve data.
Claim(s) 5, 7 is/are rejected under 35 U.S.C. 103 as being unpatentable over US 20170026538 to Okada in view of US 20130050742 to Ward further in view of US 5524186 to Campbell further in view US 20130021636 to Varga.
Regarding claim 5, Okada discloses the method of claim 1, further comprising
retrieving the rendered plurality of pages from the first storage drive to provide to a print engine during the subsequent time period (paragraph 60, 64, 73; rendered pages are held in HDD (first storage) and are retrieved from HDD at later time by user instruction and provided to print unit 203 (print engine)).
However Okada does not disclose communicating that the rendered plurality of pages is stored in the first storage drive; and retrieving the rendered plurality of pages from the first storage drive by an engine manager of the RIP system to provide to a print engine.
Varga discloses communicating that the rendered plurality of pages is stored in the first storage drive; and retrieving the rendered plurality of pages from the first storage drive by an engine manager of the RIP system to provide to a print engine (paragraph 26, 28; control system 306 communicates that rendered pages are stored in solid state memory 110 (first storage) to side builder 310; side builder 310 (engine manager) of RIP system including rasterizer 308, retrieves the rendered pages from solid state memory 110 which is then sent to print engine).
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 Okada as taught by Varga to provide communication to an engine manager of rendered data being stored before transferring to print engine.
The motivation to combine the references is to provide communication to engine managers when the rendered pages are stored such that this will initiate processing of sheet images as soon as possible based on rendered pages being stored before being provided to the printer unit and freeing up memory as soon as the printing starts (paragraph 26, 28).
Regarding claim 7, Varga discloses the method of claim 1, further comprising notifying a front end of the RIP system of the first storage drive storing the rendered plurality of pages in the hierarchy of storage drives (paragraph 28; when a page is rasterized and stored in solid state memory 110 (first storage), it notifies control system 306 (front end) in the system including rasterizer 308 by sending Page_delimited message; paragraph 18; hierarchy of storages including solid state memory and hard disk).
Claim(s) 8 is/are rejected under 35 U.S.C. 103 as being unpatentable over US 20170026538 to Okada in view of US 20130050742 to Ward further in view of US 5524186 to Campbell further in view KR 102462549 to Lee.
Regarding claim 8, Okada does not disclose the method of claim 1, further comprising deleting, by the front end, the rendered plurality of pages from the first storage drive after the print job is printed at the printing device.
Lee discloses further comprising deleting, by the front end, the rendered plurality of pages from the first storage drive after the print job is printed at the printing device (paragraph 57, 68-69; integrated printing automation management device (100) (front end) deletes the ripped data (including rendered pages) from PDF storage unit (184) when print job is finished at the printer connected).
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 Okada as taught by Lee to provide deletion of rendered pages based on print job being printed.
The motivation to combine the references is to provide deletion of rendered print data after print completion to stop leakage of the data and further to free up memory when rendered data is not needed (paragraph 5, 91, 106).
Claim(s) 9-10 is/are rejected under 35 U.S.C. 103 as being unpatentable over US 20170026538 to Okada in view of US 20130050742 to Ward further in view of US 5524186 to Campbell further in view JP 2019137018 to Hashimoto.
Regarding claim 9, Ward discloses printing after the rendering step (paragraph 27, 36; after rasterizing in step 206, it prints in step 216).
However Okada in view of Ward does not disclose the method of claim 1, further comprising printing a first copy of the print job.
Hashimoto discloses further comprising printing a first copy of the print job (paragraph 25, 48; for print jobs having “hold after test print” setting, a first copy of job is printed as test print and the print job is held in RAM 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 Okada as taught by Hashimoto to provide printing of first copy for hold print job that is stored in memory.
The motivation to combine the references is to provide a test printing sample of the print job for the user as selected by printing one copy such that the user can have proof print of the print job before it is saved in the memory (paragraph 25, 48).
Regarding claim 10, Hashimoto discloses the method of claim 9, further comprising printing an additional copy of the print job during the subsequent time period (paragraph 25; at later time period when user selects the stored print job in RAM 153 on display 10, the remaining copies including additional copy of the print job is printed).
Other Prior Art Cited
14. The prior art made of record and not relied upon is considered pertinent to applicant's disclosure.
US-20130063765 to Lax.
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.
Any inquiry concerning this communication or earlier communications from the examiner should be directed to BENIYAM MENBERU whose telephone number is (571) 272-7465. The examiner can normally be reached on Monday-Friday, 10:00am-6:30pm.
If attempts to reach the examiner by telephone are unsuccessful, the examiner’s supervisor, Akwasi Sarpong can be reached on (571) 270-3438. The fax phone number for the organization where this application or proceeding is assigned is 571-273-8300.
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Patent Examiner
Beniyam Menberu
/BENIYAM MENBERU/Primary Examiner, Art Unit 2681
01/16/2026