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
Acknowledgment is made of applicant’s claim for foreign priority under 35 U.S.C. 119 (a)-(d). The certified copy of Japan Application No. 2023-095446 was received on 02 July 2024 as required by 37 CFR 1.55.
Information Disclosure Statement
The references cited in the information disclosure statement (IDS) submitted on 03 June 2024 have been considered by the examiner.
Drawings
The drawings filed on 03 June 2024 are accepted.
Specification
The lengthy specification has not been checked to the extent necessary to determine the presence of all possible minor errors. Applicant's cooperation is requested in correcting any errors of which applicant may become aware in the specification.
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 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.
The factual inquiries set forth in Graham v. John Deere Co., 383 U.S. 1, 148 USPQ 459 (1966), that are applied for establishing a background for determining obviousness under 35 U.S.C. 103 are summarized as follows:
1. Determining the scope and contents of the prior art.
2. Ascertaining the differences between the prior art and the claims at issue.
3. Resolving the level of ordinary skill in the pertinent art.
4. Considering objective evidence present in the application indicating obviousness or nonobviousness.
Claims 1-3 are rejected under 35 U.S.C. 103 as being unpatentable over Sakai (US PGPub 2012/0081437 A1), in view of Satake (US PGPub 2013/0182026 A1), and further in view of Mikashima et al. (US PGPub 2022/0009226 A1), hereinafter Mikashima.
With regard to Claim 1, Sakai discloses an ink-jet recording apparatus (Abstract; Fig. 1), comprising:
a conveyor belt that is configured to convey a sheet (Fig. 1; belt 8; sheet P);
a recording head (11) including
a pressurizing chamber that is configured to store ink (¶0026, pressure chamber 110),
a nozzle that is configured to communicate with the pressurizing chamber (¶0025-0026),
a displacement device that is configured to apply pressure to the pressurizing chamber by being deformed by application of voltage (actuator unit 21; ¶0026), and
a driver circuit that is configured to switch the application of the voltage to the displacement device ON/OFF in response to a pulse drive signal input to the driver circuit (¶0032-0033), the recording head forming an image on the sheet by the application of the pressure to the pressurizing chamber to cause the ink to be ejected through the nozzle (¶0023, 0033); and
a control unit that is configured to generate and input the pulse drive signal to the driver circuit (¶0033),
the conveyor belt including a flushing region (¶0049, ¶0021)
Sakai does not explicitly disclose the conveyor belt including a flushing region in which an opening is formed; the flushing region including a plurality of flushing regions that are arrayed at an interval in a moving direction of the conveyor belt; while the conveyor belt is driven, the control unit causing the recording head to execute a flushing process of ejecting the ink into the opening of a flushing region on which the sheet is absent among the plurality of flushing regions in addition to an image forming process of ejecting the ink onto the sheet; the control unit causing the recording head to execute a meniscus-shaking process of shaking a meniscus of the ink in the nozzle by inputting the pulse drive signal for the meniscus-shaking process to the driver circuit and driving the displacement device; in the meniscus-shaking process before the flushing process, the control unit setting a pulse duration of the pulse drive signal to be smaller than a time constant of a circuit unit that includes the driver circuit and the displacement device.
The secondary reference of Satake discloses the control unit causing the recording head to execute a meniscus-shaking process of shaking a meniscus of the ink in the nozzle by inputting the pulse drive signal for the meniscus-shaking process to the driver circuit and driving the displacement device (Fig. 12; ¶0071-0074), in the meniscus-shaking process before the flushing process (¶0074, meniscus oscillation before dot formation), the control unit setting a pulse duration of the pulse drive signal to be smaller than a time constant of a circuit unit that includes the driver circuit and the displacement device (Fig. 12; ¶0071-0074).
It would have been obvious to one of ordinary skill in the art before the effective filing date of the claimed invention to incorporate the meniscus shaking process of Satake, with the recording apparatus and flushing of Sakai, in order that the thickened ink in the vicinity of the meniscus can be stirred sufficiently to reduce the viscosity of the ink in the vicinity of the meniscus to an appropriate viscosity, thereby recovering the nozzles into a state that can perform stable ink ejection, as taught by Satake (¶0073).
The tertiary reference of Mikashima discloses the conveyor belt including a flushing region in which an opening is formed (Fig. 8; ¶0100),
the flushing region including a plurality of flushing regions that are arrayed at an interval in a moving direction of the conveyor belt (Figs. 8-9),
while the conveyor belt is driven, the control unit causing the recording head to execute a flushing process of ejecting the ink into the opening of a flushing region on which the sheet is absent among the plurality of flushing regions in addition to an image forming process of ejecting the ink onto the sheet (¶0097-0101; ¶0086-0091).
It would have been obvious to one of ordinary skill in the art before the effective filing date of the claimed invention to incorporate the flushing region having an opening of Mikashima, with the combination of Sakai-Satake, in order to pass ink when the recording head performs flushing, as taught by Mikashima (¶0007).
With regard to Claim 2, Sakai does not explicitly disclose wherein, in the meniscus-shaking process before the image forming process, the control unit sets the pulse duration of the pulse drive signal to be larger than the time constant of the circuit unit.
The secondary reference of Satake discloses wherein, in the meniscus-shaking process before the image forming process, the control unit sets the pulse duration of the pulse drive signal to be larger than the time constant of the circuit unit (¶0071-0074, pulse width set to 0.8 to 1.2 times the natural oscillation period).
With regard to Claim 3, Sakai does not explicitly disclose wherein the meniscus-shaking process includes a plurality of times of the meniscus-shaking process, the control unit causes the recording head to execute the plurality of times of the meniscus-shaking process before the image forming process, and the control unit sets the pulse duration of the pulse drive signal to be larger than the time constant of the circuit unit in a predetermined number of times of the meniscus-shaking process among the plurality of times of the meniscus-shaking process before the image forming process, and sets the pulse duration of the pulse drive signal to be smaller than the time constant of the circuit unit in rest of the plurality of times of the meniscus-shaking process.
The secondary reference of Satake discloses wherein the meniscus-shaking process includes a plurality of times of the meniscus-shaking process (¶0073, meniscus oscillation N number of times), the control unit causes the recording head to execute the plurality of times of the meniscus-shaking process before the image forming process (¶0073), and the control unit sets the pulse duration of the pulse drive signal to be larger than the time constant of the circuit unit in a predetermined number of times of the meniscus-shaking process among the plurality of times of the meniscus-shaking process before the image forming process (drive waveform with a pulse width that is 0.8 to 1.2 times the natural oscillation period of the recording heads is used as the drive waveform for meniscus oscillation; 0073-0074), and sets the pulse duration of the pulse drive signal to be smaller than the time constant of the circuit unit in rest of the plurality of times of the meniscus-shaking process (drive waveform with a pulse width that is 0.8 to 1.2 times the natural oscillation period of the recording heads is used as the drive waveform for meniscus oscillation; 0073-0074).
Conclusion
Any inquiry concerning this communication or earlier communications from the examiner should be directed to SCOTT A. RICHMOND whose telephone number is (313)446-6547. The examiner can normally be reached on M-F 9-6:00 PM.
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If attempts to reach the examiner by telephone are unsuccessful, the examiner’s supervisor, Douglas Rodriguez can be reached on 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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/SCOTT A RICHMOND/Primary Examiner, Art Unit 2853