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 .
Response to Arguments
Applicant’s arguments, see the remarks, filed on 02/04/2026, with respect to the rejections of claims 1 and 10 under 35 U.S.C. 102 have been fully considered and are persuasive. Therefore, the rejection has been withdrawn. However, upon further consideration, a new ground of rejection is made in view of Wirley et al. (U.S. 3,512,885).
Priority
3. Receipt is acknowledged of papers submitted under 35 U.S.C. 119(a)-(d), which papers have been placed of record in the file.
Drawings
4. The examiner contends that the drawings submitted on 05/21/2024 are acceptable for examination proceedings.
Claim Rejections - 35 USC § 103
5. 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 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.
6. 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 of this title, 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.
7. Claims 1, 3-7 and 9 are rejected under 35 U.S.C. 103 as being unpatentable over Korogi (JP 2012-166347), in view of Wirley et al. (U.S. 3,512,885).
8. Regarding independent claim 1: Korogi disclosed a medium detector comprising:
a medium sensor to emit light to detect a medium conveyed by a drum in a conveyance direction ([0047], lines 1-3; also see Fig. 11. Light emitter 310 and light receiver 312 form a sensor to detect medium P conveyed by drum 210);
a sensor holder to hold the medium sensor (Fig. 11, the support for light emitter 310 and light receiver 312 (not shown));
a light shield to shield a part of the light emitted from the medium sensor in an axial direction of the drum orthogonal to the conveyance direction ([0141], lines 1-5 and [0137], lines 2-5; also see Fig. 11, references 360 and 362); and
a housing (Fig. 15, the housing of inkjet recording apparatus 10 (not shown)):
rotatably supporting the drum (Fig. 11, the drum 210 is rotatably supported); and
holding the sensor holder and the light shield (Fig. 11 Fig. 11, the medium sensor is held in place relatively to the drum 210 by a support (not shown)).
Korogi is silent about wherein the light shield is secured to the housing so that a position of the light shield is arranged in a direction orthogonal to a direction of a rotation axis of the drum supported by the housing.
Wirley et al. disclosed a printing apparatus (see Fig. 1), comprising a light shield (Col. 6, line 44; also see Fig. 2, reference 26) for shielding light emitted from a light emitting source (Fig. 2, reference LMP) and directed toward a drum (Fig. 2, reference 20), wherein the light shield is secured to the housing (Col. 6, lines 44 -51; also see Fig. 2) so that a position of the light shield is arranged in a direction orthogonal to a direction of a rotation axis of the drum supported by the housing (Fig. 2, the light shield 26 is attached to the frame in the axial direction of the drum which is orthogonal to the rotation axis of the drum 20).
It would have been obvious to one of ordinary skill in the art before the effective filing date of the claimed invention to combine the teachings of Wirley et al. with those of Korogi by attaching the light shield to the housing as needed in order to arrange the light shield in the path of the emitted light and block the diverging light as commonly known in the art.
9. Regarding claim 3: The combination of Korogi and Wirley et al. disclosed the medium detector according to claim 1, further comprising: a drum position detector to detect a rotational position of the drum (Korogi [0078], lines 3-9) having a penetrating portion penetrating through the drum in the axial direction (Korogi [0123], lines 1-4; also see Fig. 11, references O); and circuitry configured to rotate the drum to a detection position at which the light emitted from the medium detector penetrating through the penetrating portion (Korogi Fig. 10, reference 230).
10. Regarding claim 4: The combination of Korogi and Wirley et al. disclosed the medium detector according to claim 3, wherein the penetrating portion has one of: a penetrating hole penetrating through the drum in the axial direction; or a recess recessed from a circumferential surface of the drum and extending in the axial direction (Korogi Fig. 11, references O).
11. Regarding claim 5: The combination of Korogi and Wirley et al. disclosed the medium detector according to claim 3, wherein the drum has multiple penetrating portions including the penetrating portion, and the multiple penetrating portions are disposed at different positions in a circumferential direction of the drum (Korogi Fig. 11, references O).
12. Regarding claim 6: The combination of Korogi and Wirley et al. disclosed the medium detector according to claim 5, further comprising: an operation unit to receive an instruction of an inching operation to rotate the drum in a constant rate, wherein the circuitry rotate the drum to perform the inching operation in response to a receipt of the instruction from the operation unit until one of the multiple penetrating portions arrive at the detection position (Korogi [0078], lines 1-9).
13. Regarding claim 7: The combination of Korogi and Wirley et al. disclosed the medium detector according to claim 6.
The combination of Korogi and Wirley et al. disclosed rotating the drum in an inching operation ([0078], lines 1-9), but did not explicitly disclose wherein the circuitry rotates the drum in a forward direction or a reverse direction in a rotational direction of the drum in the inching operation.
However, Korogi disclosed that the rotating motors can rotate the drums both in the clockwise direction and in the counter clockwise direction ([0179], lines 5-6 and [0176], lines 2-3).
It would have been obvious to one of ordinary skill in the art before the effective filing date of the claimed invention to modify the teachings of the combination of Korogi and Wirley et al. with the teachings of paragraphs [0176] and [0179] of Korogi by rotating the drum in either the clockwise direction or the counter clockwise direction during the inching operation in order to take the shorter way to the home-position and reduce the amount of time required to perform the inching operation.
14. Regarding claim 9: The combination of Korogi and Wirley et al. disclosed an image forming apparatus (Korogi Fig. 15, reference 10) comprising: the medium detector according to claim 1 (Korogi see the rejection of Claim 1) to detect a medium held and conveyed on an outer peripheral surface of the drum (Korogi [0047], lines 1-3; also see Fig. 11. Light emitter 310 and light receiver 312 form a sensor to detect medium P conveyed by drum 210); and multiple liquid discharge heads facing the outer peripheral surface of the drum to discharge a liquid onto the medium (Korogi [0198], lines 1-6; also see Fig. 15, references 44K, 44Y, 44M, 44C).
Allowable Subject Matter
15. Claims 2 and 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.
16. Claim 10 is allowed.
Conclusion
17. 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).
18. 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.
19. Any inquiry concerning this communication or earlier communications from the examiner should be directed to YAOVI M. AMEH whose telephone number is (571)272-4578. The examiner can normally be reached M-F: 9:00 AM - 6:00 PM.
20. Examiner interviews are available via telephone, in-person, and video conferencing using a USPTO supplied web-based collaboration tool. To schedule an interview, applicant is encouraged to use the USPTO Automated Interview Request (AIR) at http://www.uspto.gov/interviewpractice.
21. If attempts to reach the examiner by telephone are unsuccessful, the examiner’s supervisor, RICARDO MAGALLANES can be reached at (571)272-5960. The fax phone number for the organization where this application or proceeding is assigned is 571-273-8300.
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/YAOVI M AMEH/Primary Examiner, Art Unit 2853
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