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 .
Priority
Receipt is acknowledged of certified copies of papers required by 37 CFR 1.55.
Information Disclosure Statement
The information disclosure statement (IDS) submitted on 05/22/2023 has been considered.
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) 1-3, 9 and 10 are rejected under 35 U.S.C. 103 as being unpatentable over Hayashi [9,280,095] in view of Handa et al. [9,268,261]
Hayashi discloses an image forming apparatus [Fig. 1] comprising an image carrier [11], a developing device [40], a transfer unit [25], and a fixing unit [30]; wherein the developing device including a developing roller [42] that has a circumferential surface [42s] on which a developer layer is formed at a portion facing the image carrier [Col. 8, lines 10-17], and a seal [46] including a first seal portion [Fig. 7] that covers an outer side, in a radial direction, of an axial end portion of the developing roller where the developer is not formed at the portion facing the image carrier [Col. 10, lines 5-15 and 48-60]. However, Hayashi does not disclose the seal including a second seal portion that extends inward in an axial direction from the first seal portion, and that covers an outer side, in the axial direction, of an axial end portion of the developer layer.
Handa et al. disclose an image forming apparatus [Fig. 1] comprising a developing device [Abstract] including a developing roller [110], a seal [140] to perform sealing the axial end portion of the developing roller [Col 5, lines 39-52], and an upper seal [150], as a second seal portion, that extends inward in an axial direction from the first seal portion, and that covers an outer side, in the axial direction, of an axial end portion of the developer layer [Figs. 4 & 5; Col. 5, line 53-60].
It would have been obvious to one of ordinary skill in the art at the time of the invention was made to have the developing device disclosed by Hayashi having an upper seal which acts as the second seal portion as taught by Handa et al. for the purpose of preventing leakage of the developer between the free end portion of the doctor blade and the axial end portions of the developing roller.
Allowable Subject Matter
Claims 4-8 and 11-16 are objected to as being dependent upon a rejected base claim, but would be allowable if rewritten in independent form including all of the limitations of the base claim and any intervening claims.
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examiner should be directed to HOAN H TRAN whose telephone number is (571)272-2141.
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/HOAN H TRAN/Primary Examiner, Art Unit 2852 12271/25