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 .
Claim Objections
Claims 9-10 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.
Regarding claim 9, Anderson in view of Hasseler fails to teach or suggest positioning a diffuser in the beam path of the back light source between the back light source and the coating agent jet to be checked, so that the back light is diffuse.
Claim 10 is dependent upon claim 9.
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.
The factual inquiries 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.
Claim(s) 1-2 and 11-20 is/are rejected under 35 U.S.C. 103 as being unpatentable over Anderson (US 5,627,571 cited in IDS), and in further view of Hasseler (US 2010/0214597).
Regarding claim 1, Anderson figures 1-7 teach a method for cleaning an application device (10 print head).
Anderson teaches When the printer is not printing, the printhead is repositioned to a location confronting a maintenance station 12, as shown in FIG. 1 thereby reading on the method comprising: positioning the application device in a cleaning position in or on a cleaning device.[col 3 lines 33-36]
Anderson teaches a recover device 18 used to correct the problem nozzles by cleaning and priming thereby reading on cleaning the application device in the cleaning position with the cleaning device.[col 3 lines 35-40]
Anderson teaches that each nozzle 15 may be interrogated or checked one at a time by a droplet sensor 16 for droplet ejection and, if a droplet is sensed, then the droplet trajectory is concurrently sensed for appropriate directionality. In the preferred embodiment the droplet sensor and recovery device 18 are integrally assembled in a carriage 20 thereby reading on detecting a coating agent jet emitted by the application device by a jet checking device integrated with the cleaning device. [col 4 lines 45-55]
Anderson is silent checking the coating agent jet by evaluating at least one of a parallelism of the coating agent jet relative to an adjacent coating agent jet, or a delay time of the coating agent jet between a valve opening command and the detection of the coating agent jet.
Hasseler is directed towards a service station for a print system wherein the service station 140 may further include a drop detector 214 (e.g., as part of service station components 144). Drop detector 214 is configured to determine the health of the nozzles of print heads 124, e.g., whether drops are being ejected from the nozzles of print heads 124, drop size, drop velocity, etc., in response to receiving commands from controller 142 (e.g., in the form of electrical signals). Drop detector 214 is further configured to provide data (e.g., in the form of electrical signals) to controller 142, indicating the health of the nozzles of print heads 124 thereby reading on determining size of the individual coating agent droplets of the coating agent jet.[0021]
It would have been obvious to one of ordinary skill in the art before the effective filing date of the present invention to provide a drop detector as taught in Hasseler in the assembly of Anderson to indicate the health of the nozzles of print heads.
Regarding claim 2, Anderson teaches even if the printer is in the printing mode, the printing by the printhead is periodically interrupted and moved to the maintenance station for a short period of time so that the droplet ejection performance of each nozzle can be checked by the droplet sensor and then the printhead is returned to the printing zone to continue the printing operation. Any failure to eject a droplet or any directionality problem detected causes the printhead to remain at the maintenance station for a predetermined corrective action by the recovery device thereby suggesting positioning the application device in a checking position in or on the cleaning device for subsequent checking of the coating agent jet, wherein the checking position is different from the cleaning position; repeating the cleaning and the subsequent checking until the checking shows that the jet delivery is proper.[col 4 lines 55-67]
Regarding claim 11, Anderson teaches Any failure to eject a droplet or any directionality problem detected causes the printhead to remain at the maintenance station for a predetermined corrective action by the recovery device as discussed below thereby suggesting checking the coating agent jet in a specific checking area immediately after it emerges from the application device to be an obvious modification.[col 4 lines 55-65]
Regarding claim 12, Anderson figure 4 teaches the liquid wiper comprises a meniscus 44 of cleaning solution which selectively contacts the nozzle face 33 when the cleaning solution is slightly pressurized to cause the meniscus to bulge. The vacuum nozzle is spaced by distance "t" from the nozzle face to enable vacuum removal of the cleaning solution deposited on the nozzle face by the meniscus as the carriage 20 moves along parallel to the nozzle face. The cleaning solution dissolves or loosens and entrains dried ink and other contaminants such as dust or paper fibers, thereby enable ready vacuum removal of the cleaning solution with the dried ink and contaminants therein thereby suggesting wherein cleaning the application device includes spraying the application device from the outside with a cleaning fluid to be an obvious modification for cleaning the application device.[col 5 lines 8-20]
Regarding claim 13, Anderson teaches Anderson teaches at least one vacuum nozzle adjacent the liquid wiper nozzle for suction-removal of the cleaning solution and ink or other contaminants dissolved or entrained therein thereby suggesting blowing a drying gas onto the application device from the outside to be an obvious modification of removing liquid from the cleaning container and thereby art recognized equivalence for the same purpose.(MPEP 2144.06)
Regarding claims 14-20, one of ordinary skill in the art would find the limitations of a flat jet, linear nozzle arrangement, plurality of nozzle in a row to be obvious modifications through legal precedent in MPEP 2144.04 such as changes in shape and duplication of parts.(MPEP 2144.04)
Claim(s) 3-8 is/are rejected under 35 U.S.C. 103 as being unpatentable over Anderson (US 5,627,571 cited in IDS) and Hasseler (US 2010/0214597), as applied to claim 1, and in further view of Fritz (US 2019/0308211 cited in IDS).
Regarding claim 3, Anderson in view of Hasseler is silent to detecting the coating agent jet with a camera.
Fritz is directed towards a coating device wherein figure 4A teaches a camera-based sensor arrangement for detecting clogging of the nozzles of the nozzle applicator.[0029]
It would have been obvious to one of ordinary skill in the art before the effective filing date of the present invention to provide a camera based sensor arrangement as taught in Fritz to evaluate the image of the coating agent jets captured by the image sensor and detects errors therein, such as a missing coating agent jet due to the clogging of a nozzle.[0029]
Regarding claim 4, Fritz teaches an illumination device, which is arranged in the line of sight of the image sensor on the opposite side of the coating agent jets thereby reading on detecting the coating agent jet with an optical sensor.[0030][0080]
Regarding claim 5, Fritz teaches an illumination device, which is arranged in the line of sight of the image sensor on the opposite side of the coating agent jets thereby suggesting emitting a light beam onto the optical sensor with a backlight source, the coating agent jet to be checked running in the beam path of the light beam between the backlight source and the optical sensor, so that the optical sensor tests the coating agent jet in the backlight.
Regarding claim 6, Fritz figure 4A teaches wherein the light beam of the backlight source (10) runs transversely to the coating agent jet to be checked, and the application device emits a plurality of parallel coating agent jets which run in a common jet plane.
Regarding claim 7, Fritz figure 4A teaches wherein the light beam of the back light source runs transversely to the jet plane.
Regarding claim 8, Fritz figure 4A teaches wherein the light beam of the back light source runs in the jet plane or at an acute angle to the jet plane.
Conclusion
Any inquiry concerning this communication or earlier communications from the examiner should be directed to CRISTI J TATE-SIMS whose telephone number is (571)272-1722. The examiner can normally be reached M-F 9am-6pm.
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CRISTI J. TATE-SIMS
Primary Examiner
Art Unit 1711
/CRISTI J TATE-SIMS/Primary Examiner, Art Unit 1711
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