CTFR 18/398,692 CTFR 70773 Notice of Pre-AIA or AIA Status 07-03-aia AIA 15-10-aia The present application, filed on or after March 16, 2013, is being examined under the first inventor to file provisions of the AIA. Detailed Office Action 1. Claims 1, 5-7, and 9 are pending. Claims 1 and 9 are independent. Response to Applicant’s Arguments/Remarks Filed February 6, 2026 2. The amendment filed 02/06/2026 has overcome the following objection(s) and/or rejection(s): The objection of claims 1-9. The rejection of claim 9 under 35 U.S.C. §101. 3. However, Applicant’s arguments with respect to the art rejection of the claims are not persuasive. The claims as amended are still met by Miyagawa et al. (US 2016/0350038 A1), the prior art applied in the rejection(s) in the Office Action dated December 5, 2025. Applicant argues (page 4 and page 5 of the remarks) that the Miyagawa would not have disclosed or taught at least the claimed features (D) above (for “(D)”, please see page 4 of Applicant’s remarks), and Saito would not have alleviated Miyagawa’s shortcomings noted above (see Applicant’s remarks, page 5, the two paragraphs after the indented paragraph). Applicant’s attention is directed to Miyagawa, especially para 0039, 0055, 0078, etc. Miyagawa in para 0039 states (at about the middle of 0039): “ In addition, in preparation for occurrence of an error such as paper-jamming, the spooler 204 may retain the job itself including the print data until completion of the job. ” By detecting errors in the printing, then the job cannot be removed from the queue until completion of the print job. Once the job is removed from the queue, the next job is transmitted. This would mean that the processing of the job would/could correspond to completion of the job as the next job is not transmitted until processing is completed, see paragraphs 0039, 0055, 0078, etc. ). The claimed features “(D)” labeled by Applicant in the remarks are taught by Miyagawa. Rejections follow in section 6 below. 4. Claim 6 is objected to because of the following: Claim 6/1, line 2 is missing a term between “the” and “includes”. It looks like – printer – should have been inserted while “job management apparatus” was being crossed out (“printer” replaced “job management apparatus” in amended claim 1, lines 5-6). Claim Rejection – 35 U.S.C. §112 07-30-02 AIA 5. The following is a quotation of 35 U.S.C. 112(b): (b) CONCLUSION.—The specification shall conclude with one or more claims particularly pointing out and distinctly claiming the subject matter which the inventor or a joint inventor regards as the invention. The following is a quotation of 35 U.S.C. 112 (pre-AIA), second paragraph: The specification shall conclude with one or more claims particularly pointing out and distinctly claiming the subject matter which the applicant regards as his invention. 07-34-01 6. Claim 5 is rejected under 35 U.S.C. 112(b) or 35 U.S.C. 112 (pre-AIA), second paragraph, as being indefinite for failing to particularly point out and distinctly claim the subject matter which the inventor or a joint inventor (or for applications subject to pre-AIA 35 U.S.C. 112, the applicant), regards as the invention. Claim 5 depends on canceled claim 2. Claim 2 was canceled by the amendment dated February 6, 2026. Claim Rejection – 35 U.S.C. §103 07-21-aia AIA 7. Claim s 1, 5, 6, and 9 are rejected under 35 U.S.C. 103 as being unpatentable over Miyagawa et al. (US 2016/0350038 A1) in view of Saito (US 2022/0334786 A1) . Regarding claim 1, Miyagawa (Miyagawa et al.) (Fig. 5, 8, and 9; Figs. 8 and 9 are flowcharts of steps S506 and S507, respectively, of Fig. 5; Fig. 8 described in para 0068-0071, and Fig. 9 described in para 0072-0079) discloses a method of controlling a terminal apparatus (PC 110, see Miyagawa, Fig. 1, para 0025-0028) including a processor (CPU 112) and a memory (external storage device 115, see para 0028 and 0039 ) storing a general-purpose printer driver (para 0028 and Fig. 1, “printer driver” is considered a general purpose printer driver; also note Fig. 2 and para 0039 for “ components 203, 207, and 208 are modules of a printer driver ”), communicable with a printer (printer 120) (see Figs. 1 and 2, para 0033-0034), the method comprising : acquiring, from the printer (120 in Figs. 1 and 2), information on whether or not the printer (120) includes a queueing function of queueing a plurality of print jobs (Fig. 8, steps S802-S804, para 0055 end, 0068-0071, note para 0071 and step S802 “DOES PRITNER 120 SUPPORT QUEUE?” Figs. 3 and 10, para 0040: “The port initialization processing refers to processing for the PC 110 acquiring ability information and device ID of the printer connected to the port included in the PC 110, and storing the acquired information in association with the port to initialize”; para 0041: “The ability information refers to information that indicates a setting state and capability of the printer.” “The ability information includes …… information on functions supported by the printer. The ability information is described in XML data as illustrated in Fig. 10. In the XML data of Fig. 10, …… a queue tag represents whether that printer include a job queue. The job queue is a component for queuing and retaining the job. The printer including the job queue can queue the received job in the job queue, and can process the job in order of queuing.”) (also note para 0039); determining whether or not the printer includes the queueing function based on the acquired information (Fig. 8, step S802 “DOES PRITNER 120 SUPPORT QUEUE?” para 0070-0071); in a case where the determining determines that the printer (120) includes the queueing function, transmitting a new print job generated by the general-purpose printer driver in the terminal apparatus (PC 110) (Fig. 8, steps S802 and S804, note that Fig. 8 is step S506 of Fig. 5, and S506 is performed before S507 the “TRANSMIT JOB” step; Fig. 8 described in para 0068-0070); and in a case where the determining determines that the printer (120) does not include the queueing function (Fig. 8, steps S802 NO and S803): waiting until the printer (120) is not executing any print job to transmit the new print job to the printer in a case where the printer is executing a print job (para 0039 states, at about the middle of 0039: “ In addition, in preparation for occurrence of an error such as paper-jamming, the spooler 204 may retain the job itself including the print data until completion of the job ”; see explanation at end of the next limitation “transmitting ……”); and transmitting the new print job to the printer in a case where the printer is not executing any print job (para 0039 states, at about the middle of 0039: “ In addition, in preparation for occurrence of an error such as paper-jamming, the spooler 204 may retain the job itself including the print data until completion of the job. ” By detecting errors in the printing, then the job cannot be removed from the queue until completion of the print job. Once the job is removed from the queue, the next job is transmitted. This would mean that the processing of the job would/could correspond to completion of the job as the next job is not transmitted until processing is completed, see paragraphs 0039, 0055, 0078, etc. ). Miyagawa does not disclose that the general-purpose driver operates according to IPP. Saito discloses that a general-purpose printer driver that communicates with an image forming apparatus using an industry-standard protocol such as an Internet printing protocol (IPP) is not novel but known in the art. The general-purpose printer driver can communicate with printer provided by a plurality of printer vendors, and thus, by using the general-purpose printer driver, a user can transmit a print job to an image forming apparatus without installing a printer driver unique to a vendor (para 0002). It would have been obvious to one of ordinary skill in the art before the effective filing date of the claimed invention to apply the teaching of Saito to employ a general- purpose printer driver that operates according to IPP, as the printer driver of Miyagawa, in order to a standardized and secure method for network and Internet printing. Claim 9 is rejected for corresponding to rejected claim 1. Also see para 0088 of Miyagawa. Regarding claim 5, insofar as claim 5 is understood to depend on claim 1, the determining is performed before the print job is transmitted to the printer (120) (as mentioned above, the determining step in Fig. 5, i.e., step S506, which is Fig. 8, is performed before the “TRANSMIT JOB” step S507 of Fig. 5; see S802 of Fig. 8 for step S506 of Fig. 5). Regarding claim 6/1, Miyagawa discloses notifying, on a display, the information on the state of the job (para 0077). Although not explicitly disclosed by Miyagawa, also notifying the user of whether or not the job management apparatus has the queueing function to make the user aware of such a function of the printer would have been obvious to one of ordinary skill in the art . 07-22-aia AIA 8. Claim 7 is rejected under 35 U.S.C. 103 as being unpatentable over Miyagawa et al. (US 2016/0350038 A1) in view of Saito (US 2022/0334786 A1) as applied to claim 1 above, and further in view of well-known art . Regarding claim 7/1, Miyagawa or Saito does not disclose receiving an operation of changing the order of transmission of jobs, from a user. The examiner took Official Notice of the fact that such a feature as claimed is not novel but well-known in the art. It would have been obvious to one of ordinary skill in the art before the effective filing date of the claimed invention to provide Miyagawa in view of Saito in order to provide the use flexibility in the order of transmission of jobs. 9. 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. Pertinent Prior Art 10. The prior art or art made of record and not relied upon is considered pertinent to applicant's disclosure. Kitahara et al. (US 2007/0030513 A1), [0172] Also, when there is an insufficient memory area to store the print job, the job queuing portion 94 notifies of the fact that the queuing of a new job is not possible. Consequently, in the event that the image output request from the DSC 3 and the image output request from the DSC 2 conflict, the printer 1 can queue within a possible range and, when a queuing of every job is not possible, makes a later printing request wait by a first come first served exclusive control then, when the earlier printing process is complete, queues the print job which has been made to wait and prints it. Takahashi (US 2021/0165612 A1), Figs. 7, 9, 11, 13, and 15 Nakagawa (US 2022/0147286 A1), Figs. 7-10 Levine et al. (US 2015/0347067 A1), Fig. 2, para 0035 and sending the job to the print with attributes module 242 directly. 11. 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If you would like assistance from a USPTO Customer Service Representative, call 800-786-9199 (IN USA OR CANADA) or 571-272-1000. /CHEUKFAN LEE/Primary Examiner, Art Unit 2682 Application/Control Number: 18/398,692 Page 2 Art Unit: 2682 Application/Control Number: 18/398,692 Page 3 Art Unit: 2682 Application/Control Number: 18/398,692 Page 4 Art Unit: 2682 Application/Control Number: 18/398,692 Page 5 Art Unit: 2682 Application/Control Number: 18/398,692 Page 6 Art Unit: 2682 Application/Control Number: 18/398,692 Page 7 Art Unit: 2682 Application/Control Number: 18/398,692 Page 8 Art Unit: 2682 Application/Control Number: 18/398,692 Page 9 Art Unit: 2682
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