DETAILED ACTION
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 .
Amendment received 12/24/25 was entered into the record.
Claim Rejections - 35 USC § 102
The following is a quotation of the appropriate paragraphs of 35 U.S.C. 102 that form the basis for the rejections under this section made in this Office action:
A person shall be entitled to a patent unless –
(a)(1) the claimed invention was patented, described in a printed publication, or in public use, on sale, or otherwise available to the public before the effective filing date of the claimed invention.
Claim(s) 1, 7, and 10 are rejected under 35 U.S.C. 102(a)(1) as being anticipated by Obara et al. US 8,690,150 (“Obara”).
Regarding claim 1, Obara disclosed a paper feeder comprising:
a tray (21, 26) in which a sheet can be placed;
a delivery roller (62) that delivers the sheet placed in the tray;
a paper feed roller (see Figure 1) that feeds the delivered sheet to a conveyance path;
a guide member (seen in at least Figure 1) that guides the delivered sheet from the tray toward the paper feed roller and is provided to be inclined upward toward the paper feed roller;
a lifting/lowering mechanism capable of changing a height of the tray (Figures 2 and 3); and
a controller that executes paper feed processing to feed the delivered sheet from the tray to the conveyance path by causing the paper feed roller to rotate, wherein
the guide member has a guide surface that is inclined upward toward the paper feed roller (see Figure 1),
the controller has: a setting device that accepts job settings including settings related to plural types of sheets, the plurality of types of sheets including a first type of sheet and a second type of sheet that is thicker than the first sheet (see the first full paragraph of column 2 and second full paragraph of column 10); and a lifting/lowering controller that controls the lifting/lowering mechanism such that, in a case that the second sheet is set, before initiation of the paper feed processing, a second height of the tray with respect to the guide member may become higher by a first predetermined magnitude than a first height of the tray with respect to the guide member in a case that the first type of sheet is set (see Figures 6A-6C and column 10, lines 20-30), and
the lifting/lowering controller may lift the tray, such that, in the case that the second type of sheet is set, a leading edge of the second type of sheet, delivered from the tray, abuts a position on the guide surface that is higher than a position on the guide surface that abuts a leading edge of the first type of sheet in the case that the first type of sheet is set (for example when there are more of the second type of sheets loaded than when the first type of sheets are loaded).
Regarding claim 7, Obara disclosed the guide member has a guide surface (25a) that is inclined upward toward the paper feed roller (Figure 1), and the lifting/lowering controller controls the lifting/lowering mechanism such that, in the case that the second type of sheet is set, an angle of a placement surface on which the sheet is placed in the tray with respect to the guide surface becomes smaller than an angle of the placement surface on which the sheet is placed in the tray, with respect to the guide surface, in the case that the first type of sheet is set (see Figures 6A-6C and column 10, lines 20-30).
Regarding claim 10, Obara disclosed an image forming apparatus comprising: the paper feeder according to claim 1 as listed above, see also Figure 1.
Claim Rejections - 35 USC § 103
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) 2 and 3 are rejected under 35 U.S.C. 103 as being unpatentable over Obara in view of Endo US 6,508,465 (“Endo”).
Obara disclosed the limitations of claim 1 but did not teach retry processing.
Endo teaches a similar arrangement with a first detector that is arranged on a downstream side of a paper feed roller and detects the sheet fed by the paper feed roller (Figure 1), wherein, in the case where the fed sheet is not detected by the first detector in the paper feed processing, the controller can execute retry processing to stop the paper feed processing and thereafter restart the paper feed processing (see Figure 5), and the lifting/lowering controller controls the lifting/lowering mechanism such that, in the case where the second sheet is set, and the fed sheet is not detected by the first detector during the paper feed processing, the tray is further lifted by a predetermined magnitude with respect to the guide member in a period after the paper feed processing is stopped and before the paper feed processing is restarted in the retry processing (see at least S11 after NO in S15).
Furthermore, a first detector that is arranged on a downstream side of the paper feed roller and detects the sheet fed by the paper feed roller (Figure 1), wherein, in the case where the fed sheet is not detected by the first detector in the paper feed processing (NO for S15), the controller can execute retry processing to stop the paper feed processing and thereafter restart the paper feed processing, and, in the case where the first sheet is set, and the fed sheet is not detected by the first detector during the paper feed processing, the lifting/lowering controller executes the retry processing without lifting the tray with respect to the guide member (when a different parameter is changed in the feedback loop, for example).
It would have been obvious to one of ordinary skill in the art before the effective filing date of the invention to use the teachings of Endo to retry feeding when encountering an error or misfeed and vary parameters in order to correct the issue without requiring user intervention as taught by Endo. This would improve the device’s performance.
Allowable Subject Matter
Claims 4 and 8 are allowed.
Claims 5, 6, and 9 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.
Response to Arguments
Applicant's arguments filed 12/24/25 have been fully considered but they are not persuasive.
As initial matter, applicant’s representative alleged that it could not be reasonably determined which element of the claim corresponded to which section, figure, or feature cited in the rejection. The Examiner disagrees. For example, reference to figure 1 was made to support the disclosure of a paper feed roller that feeds the delivered sheet to a conveyance path. One of ordinary skill in the art whose attention was brought to figure 1 would readily identify the unlabeled illustrated circles to represent rollers that deliver the sheet in the claimed manner. Furthermore, other references to figures and pertinent portions of the specification are straight forward to those of ordinary skill in the art.
Applicant’s representative calls for “articulated reasoning with some rational underpinning to support the legal conclusion of anticipation, as required by the MPEP, section 2131.” The Examiner disagrees as this is incorrect. The requirements for supporting an obviousness rejection are not required by MPEP 2131 to support an anticipation rejection.
Finally, Applicant calls for too narrow a reading of the claims. Instead, the claims must be given their broadest reasonable interpretation in view of the disclosure as a whole. The Examiner showed that Obara indeed taught the lifting/lowering device as indicated above. The lifting/lowering mechanism can operate in a manner that all the recited limitations were met depending on the number/thickness of sheets in the tray at the time resulting in the claimed height differences. Therefore, the lifting/lowering mechanism would be controlled such that a tray height could be higher for one type of sheet than another type of sheet of a different thickness and quantity. Applicant is reminded not to import limitations from the specification into the claim.
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 nonprovisional extension fee (37 CFR 1.17(a)) 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 mailing date of this final action.
Any inquiry concerning this communication or earlier communications from the examiner should be directed to HOWARD J SANDERS whose telephone number is (571)270-3096. The examiner can normally be reached M-F 8:00-5:00.
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/HOWARD J SANDERS/Primary Examiner, Art Unit 3653