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 .
DETAILED ACTION
Acknowledgement is made of the receipt of Preliminary Amendment filed 08 December 2009.
Priority
Receipt is acknowledged of papers submitted under 35 U.S.C. 119(a)-(d), which papers have been placed of record in the file.
Information Disclosure Statement
The references cited on a Form PTO 1449 have been considered.
Specification
The specification has been checked to the extent necessary to determine the presence of all possible minor errors. However, the applicant's cooperation is requested in correcting any errors of which applicant may become aware in the specification.
Claim Rejections
Claim Rejections - 35 USC § 102
The following is a quotation of the appropriate paragraphs of 35 U.S.C. 102 that form the basis for the rejections under this section made in this Office action:
A person shall be entitled to a patent unless –
(a)(1) the claimed invention was patented, described in a printed publication, or in public use, on sale or otherwise available to the public before the effective filing date of the claimed invention. (a)(2) the claimed invention was described in a patent issued under section 151, or in an application for patent published or deemed published under section 122(b), in which the patent or application, as the case may be, names another inventor and was effectively filed before the effective filing date of the claimed invention.
Claims 1 and 13-14 are rejected under 35 U.S.C. 102(a)(1) as being anticipated by Murao et al. (JP2016215571).
Note: The method steps are inherently taught in the apparatus device/limitations in the rejections as follow:
Murao et al. disclose in Figures 1-6 an ink jet recording apparatus comprising:
Regarding claim 1, an image processing apparatus (1) for correcting image data used to print an image on a print medium by discharging ink from a plurality of nozzles (308) provided in a printhead (303) in scanning in each of a first direction included in a scanning direction crossing a conveyance direction of the print medium (P) and a second direction different from the first direction, comprising a correction unit (601) configured to perform correction for, in the image data, image data to be printed by scanning in the first direction in accordance with a degree of condensing of the ink in the nozzles (308) such that a density change caused by the condensing is relaxed, and perform, for image data to be printed by scanning in the second direction in the image data, correction different from the correction for the image data to be printed by the scanning in the first direction (Figure 1 and 6, see abstract).
Regarding claim 13, an image processing method of correcting image data used to print an image on a print medium (P) by discharging ink from a plurality of nozzles (308) provided in a printhead (303) in scanning in each of a first direction included in a scanning direction crossing a conveyance direction of the print medium (P) and a second direction different from the first direction, comprising performing correction for, in the image data, image data to be printed by scanning in the first direction in accordance with a degree of condensing of the ink in the nozzles (308) such that a density change caused by the condensing is relaxed, and performing, for image data to be printed by scanning in the second direction in the image data, correction different from the correction for the image data to be printed by the scanning in the first direction (Figure 1 and 6, see abstract).
Regarding claim 14, a non-transitory computer-readable storage medium storing a computer program that, when read and executed by a computer for correcting image data used to print an image on a print medium by discharging ink from a plurality of nozzles (308) provided in a printhead (303) in scanning in each of a first direction included in a scanning direction crossing a conveyance direction of the print medium and a second direction different from the first direction, causes the computer to function as a correction unit (601) configured to perform correction for, in the image data, image data to be printed by scanning in the first direction in accordance with a degree of condensing of the ink in the nozzles such that a density change caused by the condensing is relaxed, and perform, for image data to be printed by scanning in the second direction in the image data, correction different from the correction for the image data to be printed by the scanning in the first direction (Figure 1 and 6, see abstract and paragraphs “Further, the density correction processing focusing on ink concentration caused by evaporation of volatile components has been described above. However, if the image density changes according to the ejection history, the present invention is effective regardless of the cause. Can function.
In the above description, the ink jet recording apparatus performs the above-described series of image processing using FIG. 1, but the present invention is not limited to such a form. A host device having a mechanism other than the recording processing unit 105 may be externally connected to the ink jet recording apparatus including the recording processing unit 105. The density correction processing may be performed by the host device, and other processing including quantization processing may be performed by the recording device. In any case, the apparatus that performs the characteristic density correction processing of the present invention is the image processing apparatus of the present invention.
The present invention supplies a program that realizes one or more functions of the above-described embodiments to a system or apparatus via a network or a storage medium, and one or more processors in a computer of the system or apparatus read and execute the program This process can be realized. It can also be realized by a circuit (for example, ASIC) that realizes one or more functions”).
Citation of Pertinent Prior Art
The prior art made of record and not relied upon is considered pertinent to applicant's disclosure. These prior art references (US Pub. 2012/0287194; US Pub. 2016/0167365; US Pub. 2022/0332126; US Pub. 2023/0166527) cited in the PTO 892 form show an ink jet printer which is deemed to be relevant to the present invention. These references should be reviewed.
Allowable Subject Matter
Claims 2-12 would be allowable if rewritten to include all of the limitations of the base claim and any intervening claims. These claims would be allowable because the prior art references of record fail to teach or suggest an image processing apparatus for correcting image data used to print an image on a print medium by discharging ink from a plurality of nozzles provided in a printhead in scanning in each of a first direction included in a scanning direction crossing a conveyance direction of the print medium and a second direction different from the first direction, comprising wherein the image data is multi-valued density data, the correction unit comprises an updating unit configured to execute correction processing of correcting first multi-valued density data of the image data in accordance with the degree of condensing and generating second multi-valued density data, execute change processing of changing an order of the second multi-valued density data in accordance with the scanning direction, and execute updating processing of updating a condensing level parameter indicating the degree of condensing of the ink based on the second multi-valued density data whose order is changed, and the updating unit updates the condensing level parameter based on a result of determining, based on the second multi-valued density data, whether the ink is discharged from the plurality of nozzles in the combination as claimed.
CONCLUSION
Any inquiry concerning this communication or earlier communications from the examiner should be directed to Examiner Anh Vo whose telephone number is (571) 272-2262. The examiner can normally be reached on Monday to Friday from 9:30 A.M.to 6:00 P.M..
If attempts to reach the examiner by telephone are unsuccessful, the examiner'ssupervisor, Douglas Rodriguez can be reached on (571) 431-0716. The fax phonenumber for the organization where this application or proceeding is assigned is 571-273-8300.
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/ANH T VO/ Primary Examiner, Art Unit 2853
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