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 .
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.
Continued Examination Under 37 CFR 1.114
A request for continued examination under 37 CFR 1.114, including the fee set forth in 37 CFR 1.17(e), was filed in this application after final rejection. Since this application is eligible for continued examination under 37 CFR 1.114, and the fee set forth in 37 CFR 1.17(e) has been timely paid, the finality of the previous Office action has been withdrawn pursuant to 37 CFR 1.114. Applicant's submission filed on 9/19/2025 has been entered.
Claim Rejections - 35 USC § 112
Claims 10-12 are rejected under 35 U.S.C. 112(a) or 35 U.S.C. 112 (pre-AIA ), first paragraph, as failing to comply with the written description requirement. The claim(s) contains subject matter which was not described in the specification in such a way as to reasonably convey to one skilled in the relevant art that the inventor or a joint inventor, or for applications subject to pre-AIA 35 U.S.C. 112, the inventor(s), at the time the application was filed, had possession of the claimed invention. Although there is support for a divider sheet on which the print quality improvement processing is to be executed and a divider sheet on which the print quality improvement processing is not to be executed, as recording materials with a second width greater a third recording material, the Office finds no written description of a third recording material with the second width that is not a divider sheet.
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) 10-12 is/are rejected under 35 U.S.C. 103 as being unpatentable over JP 2010-139954 to Kasuga et al., as applied to claim 1 above, and further in view of JP 2018/015960 to Otaki.
Regarding claim 10, Kasuga teaches an image forming apparatus (Fig.1) comprising:
one or more processors (40); one or more memories (602) storing instructions, when executed by the one or more processors, causes the image forming apparatus to form a toner image on a recording material (11); a heating roller (51, Fig.2) configured to apply heat to the recording material carrying the toner image; and a pressure roller configured to contact with the heating roller to form a nip portion, wherein the pressure roller (52, Fig.2) and the heating roller are configured to apply heat and pressure to the recording material carrying the toner image to fix the toner image onto the recording material,
wherein, when executing the instructions, the image forming apparatus performs printing on a recording material with a first width (small size) and a recording material with a second width (large size), wherein the first width is a length of the recording material in a width direction perpendicular to a conveyance direction of the recording material, and the second width is greater than the first width (see Fig.3)
wherein a period of time from when a first recording material with the first width reaches the nip portion to when a second recording material with the second width, that follows the first recording material with the first width, reaches the nip portion (Fig.6) is shorter (by a period T") than a period of time from when the first recording material with the first width reaches the nip portion to when a third recording material with the second width that follows the first recording material with the first width reaches the nip portion (Fig.7).
Kasuga is silent about a divider sheet.
Otaki discloses an image forming apparatus (10, Fig.1) comprising an image forming unit (16) configured to form a toner image on a recording material (P); wherein the image forming apparatus is configured to perform printing on a recording material with a first width and a recording material (i.e., divider sheet, sorting paper) with a second width, wherein the first width is a length of the recording material in a width direction perpendicular to a conveyance direction of the recording material, and the second width is greater than the first width (see Fig.10).
It would have been obvious to a person of ordinary skill in the art before the effective filing date of the claimed invention to use the image forming method disclosed by Kasuga in an apparatus using a divider sheets as disclosed by Otaki such that
wherein a period of time from when a first recording material with the first width reaches the nip portion to when a second recording material with the second width, that follows the first recording material with the first width and is a divider sheet, reaches the nip portion is shorter than a period of time from when the first recording material with the first width reaches the nip portion to when a third recording material with the second width that follows the first recording material with the first width and is not a divider sheet reaches the nip portion
as in a case wherein the third recording material is such that natural cooling is not necessary (Kasuga: S314=Yes) for at least the purpose of avoiding unnecessary increase in printing time.
The resulting apparatus also renders obvious:
(claim 11) The image forming apparatus according to claim 10, further comprising an operation unit having a display configured to enable a user to select a sheet type in a job, wherein the divider sheet is settable from the operation unit (Kasuga: #201 in Fig.4; Otaki: #22 in Fig.5).
claim 12) The image forming apparatus according to claim 10, further comprising a sheet feed cassette (21a), wherein the divider sheet is conveyed from the sheet feed cassette (Kasuga: Fig.1).
Response to Arguments
Applicant's arguments filed 09/19/2025 have been fully considered but they are not persuasive. Applicant points to the features of claim 10 that they believe to be allowable and state that the cited art fails to teach these features. The Office respectfully disagrees and the rejection has been presented above.
Contact Information
Any inquiry concerning this communication or earlier communications from the examiner should be directed to ARLENE HEREDIA whose telephone number is (571)272-8393. The examiner can normally be reached M-F: 9:30-5:30.
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/Arlene Heredia Ocasio/Primary Examiner, Art Unit 2852