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 .
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.
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.
Claim(s) 1-4 and 9 is/are rejected under 35 U.S.C. 102(a)(1) as being anticipated by Ogawa (JP 4053225). (Note: cited paragraphs correspond to the machine translation of Ogawa provided by Applicant.)
Regarding claim 1, Ogawa discloses an image forming device 100 (Fig. 1 [0050]) comprising:
a user interface 34/35/36 (Fig. 3 [0052]);
a communication interface 24/25 (Fig. 2 [0051]);
a memory 23 (Fig. 2 [0052]); and
a controller 26 (Fig. 2 [0052]) configured to perform:
transitioning the image forming device to a sleep state (S5) from a standby state (S2) under a condition that a first duration t3 elapses with the image forming device maintained in the standby state since a start of the standby state (Fig. 5 [0066, 0069]; machine translation of Fig. 5 provided below), the sleep state being a state in which the image forming device consumes less power than in the standby state (in the standby state, power is supplied to all units, but in the sleep state/low-power mode, power is supplied only to a predetermined unit and the setting temperature of the heat fixing device is reduced; [0066]);
transitioning the image forming device to an off-mode state S6 from the standby state S2 under a condition that a second duration t2 elapses with the image forming device maintained in the standby state since the start of the standby state (Fig. 5 [0066, 0069]), the off-mode state being a state in which the image forming device consumes less power than in the sleep state (in the off-mode state/off mode, power is supplied only to a predetermined unit and power supply to the fixing heater 32 is stopped; [0066]); and
individually setting the first duration t3 and the second duration t2 by storing the first duration and the second duration in the memory, each of the first duration and the second duration being inputted via the user interface or the communication interface (the values of t2 and t3 can be changed by a user operation via key operation of the operation unit, which would require storing the first and second durations in the memory in order for the apparatus to function as intended; [0059, 0066]).
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Regarding claim 2, Ogawa discloses the image forming device according to claim 1, wherein the standby state S2 is a state: where main power of the image forming device is on (“Main power SW ON”; see Fig. 5 above); where the image forming device has received neither an image-formation instruction operation via the user interface nor image-formation instruction data via the communication interface (transition condition 1 includes pressing keys other than the start key 39, touching the touch panel 34, and reception of print request data from the host computer, and occurs only from S5 or S6 to S7 or S8; Fig. 5 [0067]); and where no image formation is in progress in the image forming device (see Fig. 5; standby S2 occurs after copy finished S3).
Regarding claim 3, Ogawa discloses the image forming device according to claim 1, wherein a time-length value settable for the first duration t3 falls within a first range, and a time-length value settable for the second duration t2 falls within a second range, wherein a lower limit of the second range is less than an upper limit of the first range ([0069-0070]; because the off-mode state occurring after second duration t2 can be reached either from the standby state or the sleep state, the first and second ranges would overlap such that t2 can either be smaller or larger than t3, thereby meeting the claim).
Regarding claim 4, Ogawa discloses the image forming device according to claim 1, wherein the user interface includes a display 34/35/36 configured to display information (Fig. 3 [0063, 0070]), wherein the sleep state is a panel sleep state in which the image forming device consumes less power than in the standby state by halting a power supply to the display ([0084, 0090-0091]), wherein the controller is configured to further perform: transitioning the image forming device to a deep sleep state (off mode) from the panel sleep state under a condition that a preset duration t2 elapses with the image forming device maintained in the panel sleep state since a start of the panel sleep state without satisfying a condition for cancelling the panel sleep state ([0092]), wherein the deep sleep state is a state in which the image forming device consumes less power than in the panel sleep state by halting a power supply to a component in the image forming device in addition to halting the power supply to the display ([0066]).
Regarding claim 9, Ogawa discloses the image forming device according to claim 1, further comprising: a power key 12 (Fig. 3 [0056]), wherein the controller is configured to further perform: cancelling the sleep state S5 when a condition for cancelling the sleep state is satisfied (e.g., touching the touch panel 34; [0067]); and cancelling the off-mode state S6 when a condition for cancelling the off-mode state is satisfied (e.g., pressing the power key/power switch 12; [0067]), the condition for cancelling the off-mode state being different from the condition for cancelling the sleep state, wherein the condition for cancelling the off-mode state is that the power key is operated ([0067]).
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.
Claim(s) 5 and 7 is/are rejected under 35 U.S.C. 103 as being unpatentable over Ogawa (JP 4053225).
Regarding claims 5 and 7, Ogawa discloses the image forming device according to claim 1, but fails to disclose wherein the controller is configured to further perform: issuing a warning when a time-length value inputted for the first duration (claim 5) and the second duration (claim 7) is greater than a reference value.
Ogawa, however, has hardware (LCD 35 and LED embedded in start key 39) capable of issuing a warning ([0070, 0072]).
It would have been obvious to one of ordinary skill in the art before the effective filing date of the invention to utilize the hardware of Ogawa to issue a warning when a time-length value inputted for the first duration (claim 5) and the second duration (claim 7) is greater than a reference value. One would have been motivated to make this modification in order to notify a user of an upper limit as to the value inputted for the first and second duration so that the apparatus would not infinitely remain powered in the standby state, thereby functioning as intended.
Allowable Subject Matter
Claims 6, 8, and 10 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:
Prior art of record does not disclose or suggest the claimed “wherein in a case where a time-length value is inputted for the first duration via the user interface, the individually setting sets the inputted time-length value as the first duration even when the inputted time-length value is greater than a reference value, wherein in a case where a time-length value is inputted for the first duration via the communication interface, the individually setting sets the inputted time-length value as the first duration only when the inputted time-length value is less than the reference value” in combination with the remaining limitations of claim 6.
Prior art of record does not disclose or suggest the claimed “wherein in a case where a time-length value is inputted for the second duration via the user interface, the individually setting sets the inputted time-length value as the second duration even when the inputted time-length value is greater than a reference value, wherein in a case where a time-length value is inputted for the second duration via the communication interface, the individually setting sets the inputted time-length value as the second duration only when the inputted time-length value is less than the reference value” in combination with the remaining limitations of claim 8.
Prior art of record does not disclose or suggest the claimed “wherein the controller performs the transitioning the image forming device to the sleep state from the standby state even when the image forming device has established communications with an external device, wherein the controller does not perform the transitioning the image forming device to the off-mode state from the standby state when the image forming device has established communications with the external device” in combination with the remaining limitations of claim 10.
Prior Art
The prior art made of record on form PTO-892 included herewith and not relied upon is cited as related art.
Conclusion
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/CARLA J THERRIEN/Primary Examiner, Art Unit 2852