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 .
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 2/28/2024 is in compliance with the provisions of 37 CFR 1.97. Accordingly, the information disclosure statement is being considered by the examiner.
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.
This application currently names joint inventors. In considering patentability of the claims the examiner presumes that the subject matter of the various claims was commonly owned as of the effective filing date of the claimed invention(s) absent any evidence to the contrary. Applicant is advised of the obligation under 37 CFR 1.56 to point out the inventor and effective filing dates of each claim that was not commonly owned as of the effective filing date of the later invention in order for the examiner to consider the applicability of 35 U.S.C. 102(b)(2)(C) for any potential 35 U.S.C. 102(a)(2) prior art against the later invention.
Claim(s) 1, 9 and 10 are rejected under 35 U.S.C. 103 as being unpatentable over US 2014/0092157 to Yoshida as modified by JP 2022128721 A to Kanzaki.
With regard to Claim 1, Yoshida teaches (fig. 1) a printing apparatus (101) comprising:
a base head (3) configured to eject a base ink [0023];
an image head (2) configured to eject an image ink including a special color ink; and
a control device (100/158),
wherein the control device is configured to execute printing operation in one of printing modes including a first printing mode and a second printing mode, the printing operation in which the base ink is ejected from the base head to form a base layer on a medium to be printed [0059].
Yoshida does not teach an image head configured to eject an image ink including a special color ink (emphasis added,) and the image ink is ejected from the image head to form an image layer on the base layer; and wherein when the printing operation is executed in the second printing mode, the control device reduces an ejection amount of the base ink, an ejection amount of the image ink, or the ejection amount of the base ink and the ejection amount of the image ink compared to those in the first printing mode.
However, Kanzaki teaches an image head configured to eject an image ink including a special color ink (W) [0015], the image ink is ejected from the image head to form an image layer on the base layer [0035] and wherein when the printing operation is executed in the second printing mode, the control device (60) reduces an ejection amount of the base ink, an ejection amount of the image ink, or the ejection amount of the base ink and the ejection amount of the image ink compared to those in the first printing mode [0034]. It would have been obvious to one of ordinary skill in the art before the effective filing date of the claimed invention to modify Yoshida with the teachings of Kanzaki to provide the printing apparatus which can suppress the deterioration of the image quality in the part printed by overlapping colors [0006].
With regard to Claims 9-10, Yoshida teaches a control method for a printing apparatus (101), wherein the printing apparatus includes: a base head (3) configured to eject a base ink, and an image head (2) configured to eject an image ink [0023], wherein the control method comprises: executing a printing operation in one of printing modes including a first printing mode and a second printing mode [0035 and 0029]; the printing operation in which the base ink is ejected from the base head to form a base layer on a medium to be printed [0059].
Yoshida does not teach an image head configured to eject an image ink including a special color ink, (emphasis added,) the image ink is ejected from the image head to form an image layer on the base layer; and reducing, in the second printing mode, an ejection amount of the base ink, an ejection amount of the image ink, or the ejection amount of the base ink and the ejection amount of the image ink compared to an ejection amount of a corresponding ink in the first printing mode.
However, Kanzaki teaches an image head configured to eject an image ink including a special color ink (white) [0015], the image ink is ejected from the image head to form an image layer on the base layer [0035]; and reducing, in the second printing mode, an ejection amount of the base ink, an ejection amount of the image ink, or the ejection amount of the base ink and the ejection amount of the image ink compared to an ejection amount of a corresponding ink in the first printing mode [0034]. ]. It would have been obvious to one of ordinary skill in the art before the effective filing date of the claimed invention to modify Yoshida with the teachings of Kanzaki to provide the printing apparatus which can suppress the deterioration of the image quality in the part printed by overlapping colors [0006].
Claim 5 is rejected under 35 U.S.C. 103 as being unpatentable over US 2014/0092157 to Yoshida as modified by JP 2022128721 A to Kanzaki and further in view of US 2023/0241903 to Ikeuchi.
With regard to Claim 5, Yoshida as modified by Kanzaki teach the claimed invention except for wherein the control device identifies an amount of the special color ink included in the image ink forming the image layer, wherein when the printing operation is executed in the second printing mode, the control device controls: the base head to eject the base ink in an amount corresponding to the amount of the special color ink in the image layer; the image head to eject the image ink in an amount corresponding to the amount of the special color ink in the image layer, or the base head to eject the base ink in the amount corresponding to the amount of the special color ink in the image layer and the image head to eject the image ink in the amount corresponding to the amount of the special color ink in the image layer.
However, Ikeuchi teaches (fig. 3) wherein the control device (50) identifies an amount of the special color ink included in the image ink forming the image layer, wherein when the printing operation is executed in the second printing mode, the control device controls: the base head (21) to eject the base ink in an amount corresponding to the amount of the special color ink in the image layer; the image head (22) to eject the image ink in an amount corresponding to the amount of the special color ink in the image layer, or the base head to eject the base ink in the amount corresponding to the amount of the special color ink in the image layer and the image head to eject the image ink in the amount corresponding to the amount of the special color ink in the image layer [0048 and 0049]. It would have been obvious to one of ordinary skill in the art before the filing date of the claimed invention to modify Yoshida as modified by Kanzaki with the teachings of Ikeuchi to provide a technique that enables, when first ink is precured in advance and second ink is ejected on the precured first ink, ensuring sufficient adhesion properties of the second ink via a primer [0008].
Examiner Note
The examiner cites particular columns and lines numbers (or paragraphs or figures) in the references as applied to the claims above for the convenience of the applicant. The specified citations are representative of the teachings in the art and are applied to the specific limitations within the individual claim. Other passages and figures may apply as well. It is respectfully requested that, in preparing responses, applicant fully consider the references in their entirety as potentially teaching all or part of the claimed invention, as well as the context of the passage as taught by the prior art or disclosed by the examiner.
Allowable Subject Matter
Claims 2-4 and 6-8 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.
The following is a statement of reasons for the indication of allowable subject matter: The primary reason for the allowance of Claim 2 is the inclusion of the limitations wherein the image layer includes: a first image region formed by the first image ink without being formed by the second image ink. It is these features found in the claim(s) which have not been found, taught or suggested by the prior art of record, which makes this claim allowable over the prior art.
The primary reason for the allowance of Claim 2 is the inclusion of the limitations wherein the image layer includes: a first image region formed by the first image ink without being formed by the second image ink. It is these features found in the claim(s) which have not been found, taught or suggested by the prior art of record, which makes this claim allowable over the prior art.
The primary reason for the allowance of Claim 3 is the inclusion of the limitations wherein the image layer has a third image region formed by the basic color ink without being formed by the special color ink, and a fourth image region formed by the special color ink. It is these features found in the claim(s) which have not been found, taught or suggested by the prior art of record, which makes this claim allowable over the prior art.
The primary reason for the allowance of Claim 4 is the inclusion of the limitations the base head to eject the base ink in an amount corresponding to a hue of an image which is a target of the printing operation. It is these features found in the claim(s) which have not been found, taught or suggested by the prior art of record, which makes this claim allowable over the prior art.
The primary reason for the allowance of Claim 6 is the inclusion of the limitations the second printing mode includes a saturation priority mode and a brightness priority mode. It is these features found in the claim(s) which have not been found, taught or suggested by the prior art of record, which makes this claim allowable over the prior art.
The primary reason for the allowance of Claim 7 is the inclusion of the limitations determine whether a printing condition including a type of the medium to be printed, a type of a pretreatment performed on the medium to be printed before the ejection of the base ink. It is these features found in the claim(s) which have not been found, taught or suggested by the prior art of record, which makes this claim allowable over the prior art.
The primary reason for the allowance of Claim 8 is the inclusion of the limitations determine whether an image to be printed on the medium to be printed satisfies a predetermined condition. It is these features found in the claim(s) which have not been found, taught or suggested by the prior art of record, which makes this claim allowable over the prior art.
Conclusion
The prior art made of record and not relied upon is considered pertinent to applicant's disclosure. CN 111439026 A discloses a liquid ejection device and a liquid ejection method. The liquid ejection device (1) comprises: a spraying part (8) capable of spraying liquid; and a control part (20) for spraying liquid from the spraying part and controlling the liquid to the medium (M); the spraying part is formed to be capable of spraying the ink containing the coloured material and the inhibiting liquid of the medium forming image and the inhibiting liquid soaked by the medium as the liquid, the control part is configured to be capable of selecting the first printing mode and the second printing mode; the first printing mode is the following mode: imparting ink to the medium by not imparting a suppression liquid to the medium, thereby forming an image on the medium; The second printing mode is as follows: giving the inhibiting liquid to the medium and giving the ink to the medium with the inhibiting liquid, so as to form the image on the medium; the control part makes the giving amount of the ink per unit area in the second printing mode is less than the giving amount of the ink per unit area in the first printing mode.
CN 106994827 A discloses a printing device, wherein it comprises a printing part, the printing part through jetting the first ink on the recording medium to form a first print area the first path the conveyed recording medium, then, the first path different from the second path jetting the second ink on the recording medium to form a second print area is formed by the first print area and the second print area of the image, the first path is along the path of the direction intersecting with the conveying direction of the recording medium; judging part, when forming the image, the judging part to the second jetting the second ink of first ink of the first path in the first ejection position and the second path in the determination, and a correction determining section the correction determining section performing ejection position changing correction based on the judging result of the judging part, said ejection position changing correction changes the first ejection position to the first ink ejection in the second path, and changing the second ejection position to a portion of the second ink ejection in the first path.
WO 2023218856 A1 discloses in the second printing mode ejection amount setting step S14, the drive waveform setting unit 114 sets the ejection amount of the one-liquid ink applied to the second printing mode. Once the ejection amount of the one-liquid ink is set in the second print mode ejection amount setting step S14, the process proceeds to the drive waveform setting step S18. Note that the one-liquid ink described in the embodiment is an example of a second ink that does not contain a component that reacts with the pretreatment liquid.
Communication with the PTO
Any inquiry concerning this communication or earlier communications from the examiner should be directed to SHARON A POLK whose telephone number is (571)270-7910. The examiner can normally be reached M-F, 7-3.
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If attempts to reach the examiner by telephone are unsuccessful, the examiner’s supervisor, Douglas Rodriguez can be reached at 571-431-0716. The fax phone number for the organization where this application or proceeding is assigned is 571-273-8300.
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SHARON A. POLK
Primary Examiner
Art Unit 2853
/Sharon Polk/Primary Examiner, Art Unit 2853