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 09/02/2024 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
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.
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.
Claims 1, 2 and 7-9 are rejected under 35 U.S.C. 103 as being unpatentable over Kaneoka Hiromichi et al (JP 2024011121 A) in view of Hideaki Ooba (US 20180181043 A1).
Regarding claim 1, Hiromichi et al discloses an information processing apparatus capable of communicating with an image forming apparatus (¶ [37] job generation device; ¶ [1] generation device generates sheet to be executed by a sheet processing device) that includes a creasing mechanism that provides a crease for folding to the long sheet at multiple sites in a longitudinal direction (¶ [9] creasing direction selection; ¶ [19] sheet size and creasing information for printed product; ¶ [45] sheet processing device having a “creasing section”), comprising a controller that receives a setting for a job related to the image formation and sends an instruction to the image forming apparatus (¶ [37]), wherein the controller performs:
receiving a selection of the long sheet, a setting of a creasing function that provides the crease to the selected long sheet, and a setting of a position of the crease (¶ [37] size information, ¶ [37] creasing information and creasing position setting);
determining the position where the crease is provided according to the setting (¶ [38]); and
displaying, on a screen of the information processing apparatus, a display image corresponding to the selected long sheet on which the display image of a print document and the position of the crease are superimposed, thereby receiving the setting of the position of the crease (¶ [37] preview unit 82; display 800).
Hiromichi fails to explicitly disclose an image former that forms an image on a long sheet.
Ooba, in the same field of endeavor of an image forming apparatus capable of determining crease processing on sheets (Abstract), teaches an image former that forms an image on a long sheet (¶ [31] and ¶ [35]).
It would have been obvious to one of ordinary skill in the art before the invention was effectively filed for the information processing apparatus as disclosed by Hiromichi et al comprising a controller which performs determining the position where a crease is provided according to a setting of a creasing function and a setting of a position of the crease to utilize the teachings of Ooba which teaches an image former that forms an image on a long sheet to enable creasing and other post-processing functionality to sheets that have undergone printing and account for the location of the image to determine crease positions.
Regarding claim 2, Hiromichi et al discloses the information processing apparatus according to claim 1 (see rejection of claim 1), wherein the controller performs:
displaying on the screen a predetermined position corresponding to a size of the selected long sheet as an initial position of the crease (¶ [52]); and
receiving an adjustment that changes the position of each crease in the longitudinal direction from the initial position, moving the position of the crease on the screen according to the received adjustment, and displaying the resulting position of the crease (¶ [38] and ¶ [52-53]).
Regarding claim 7, Hiromichi et al discloses the information processing apparatus according to claim 1 (see rejection of claim 1), wherein the controller receives the setting for the creasing function that folds the long sheet in thirds (¶ [56]).
Regarding claim 8, Hiromichi et al discloses a method for setting long sheet printing, wherein in an information processing apparatus capable of communicating with an image forming apparatus that includes an image former that forms an image on a long sheet and a creasing mechanism that provides a crease for folding to the long sheet at multiple sites in a longitudinal direction, a controller that receives a setting for a job related to the image formation and sends an instruction to the image forming apparatus performs (see rejection of claim 1):
receiving a selection of the long sheet, a setting of a creasing function that provides the crease to the selected long sheet, and a setting of a position of the crease (see rejection of claim 1); and
determining the position where the crease is provided according to the setting, wherein in the receiving of the setting, the controller displays, on a screen of the information processing apparatus, a display image corresponding to the selected long sheet on which the display image of a print document and the position of the crease are superimposed, thereby receiving the setting of the position of the crease (see rejection of claim 1).
Regarding claim 9, Hiromichi et al discloses an image forming apparatus (sheet processing device as rejected in claim 1) comprising:
an image former that forms an image on a long sheet (see rejection of claim 1);
a creasing mechanism that provides a crease for folding to the long sheet at multiple sites in a longitudinal direction (see rejection of claim 1);
a communication circuit that communicates with an external information processing apparatus (¶ [1] indicates the apparatus communicates with the sheet processing job generation device to execute the processing job); and
a job controller that performs processing in response to a job setting and instruction related to the image formation received from the information processing apparatus via the communication circuit, wherein the job controller performs, if the received job setting includes a creasing function, a control for forming an image on a specified long sheet and provision of the crease at a specified position on the long sheet (see rejection of claim 1).
Allowable Subject Matter
Claims 3-6 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.
Conclusion
Any inquiry concerning this communication or earlier communications from the examiner should be directed to JAMARES Q WASHINGTON whose telephone number is (571) 270-1585. The examiner can normally be reached Mon-Fri 8:30am-4:30pm.
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/JAMARES Q WASHINGTON/Primary Examiner, Art Unit 2681
June 24, 2026
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