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 .
Response to Arguments
1. Applicant’s arguments, see page 7, filed 27 July 2026, with respect to claim 5 have been fully considered and are persuasive. The 35 U.S.C. § 112 of claim 5 has been withdrawn.
2. Applicant's arguments filed 27 July 2026 have been fully considered but they are not persuasive. Applicant has amended independent claims 1 and 5 to include additional limitations regarding the specific number and the adjustment of this number based on a specific condition. Applicant states in their remarks that the Examiner has not adequately disclosed these new limitations using the art of record. However, the Examiner respectfully disagrees. The Examiner notes the previously disclosed art contains the new limitations and has brought the additional citations from the art of record that, when taught in combination, teach these newly added limitations.
Claim Objections
Claim 4 is objected to because of the following informalities: “one of first unit control” may be changed to “one of a first unit control” to enhance clarity of antecedent basis.
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.
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.
Claims 1-3 & 5 are rejected under 35 U.S.C. 103 as being unpatentable over Maruta (US 20210107284 A1) and further in view of Nakashima (US 20040189737 A1).
With respect to Claim 1, Maruta teaches an inkjet control method for controlling an inkjet recording apparatus (i.e., process of “control unit 110” controlling elements in inkjet recording apparatus” printer 100”; Maruta: ¶0029, ¶0077, & ¶0071; Fig. 1-4) including
a belt conveying device which includes an endless conveying belt (i.e., “endless first conveyor belt 8”; Maruta: ¶0084 & Fig. 3) in which
a plurality of opening portions each constituted of one or more through-holes are formed with intervals in a circumferential direction (i.e., “plurality of opening portion groups 82”; Maruta: ¶0084 & Fig. 8), and
conveys a sheet on the conveying belt by causing the conveying belt to rotate (i.e., paper is conveyed in the “A” direction via belt “8” which is rotated via rollers, such as “6b”; Maruta: ¶0046 & Fig. 8),
a preceding conveying device which conveys the sheet to the belt conveying device (i.e., “registration roller pair 13” which conveys paper in the “A” direction to belt “8”; Maruta: ¶0046 & Fig. 8), and
a nozzle unit which includes
a plurality of nozzles (i.e., “plurality of ink ejection ports 18 (nozzles)” within “line heads 11Y to 11K”; Maruta: ¶0041 & Fig. 2) arranged opposed to a print position on an upper surface of the conveying belt (i.e., line heads 11Y to 11K are opposed to a position of the upper surface of “belt 8” where paper P is conveyed, where they eject ink via nozzles “18” towards the paper P; Maruta: ¶0041 & Fig. 3) and
is capable of executing print processing for forming an image on the sheet by ejecting the ink onto the sheet conveyed on the conveying belt (i.e., line heads 11Y to 11K eject ink via nozzles “18” towards the paper P being conveyed by the belt; Maruta: ¶0041 & Fig. 3),
the inkjet control method (i.e., process of “control unit 110” controlling elements in inkjet recording apparatus “100”; Maruta: ¶0077 & ¶0071; Fig. 1-4) comprising:
setting, by a processor (i.e., “control unit 110”; Maruta: ¶0033 & Fig. 4), for each target sheet that becomes a target to be conveyed by the preceding conveying device, a specific number of 1 or more in accordance with an ink ejection performance of the nozzle unit obtained at a time a previous sheet that is one sheet before the target sheet is conveyed by the belt conveying device (Maruta: ¶0077 & ¶0071; Fig. 3, “11Y to 11K”, “8”, “13”, and Fig. 9, “8”, “82F” & “P”);
causing, by the processor, the nozzle unit to execute opening flushing processing for ejecting the ink toward the specific number of subsequent opening portions that pass through the print position subsequent to the previous sheet out of the plurality of opening portions (Maruta: ¶0077 & ¶0071; Fig. 3, “11Y to 11K”, “8”, “13”, and Fig. 9, “8”, “82F” & “P”);
causing, by the processor, the preceding conveying device to execute processing of conveying the target sheet to the belt conveying device at a timing at which the specific number of the subsequent opening potions have passed through a conveyance start position of the sheet on the conveying belt (i.e., control unit “110” controlling supply of paper “P” using belt sensors “24 & “25” which detect the positioning of the opening portion groups “82” via the positioning of the belt; Maruta: ¶0046), wherein
the processor sets the specific number to 1 when the ink ejection performance does not satisfy a specific condition, and sets the specific number to 2 or more when the ink ejection performance satisfies the specific condition (i.e., Maruta: ¶0073; Fig. 9-12, wherein control unit “110” can vary the conveyance of the target sheet in relation to the specific number of the subsequent opening potion passing the conveyance start position based on different operating conditions, such as ink ejecting onto a specific size of paper). Note that the control unit “110” selects the specific opening portions “82” of interest for flushing, and the positioning of these opening portions are determined based on the belt sensors (Maruta: ¶0046).
Maruta is silent on a nozzle unit which includes
a plurality of piezoelectric elements which pressurize ink to be supplied to the plurality of nozzles to cause the ink to be ejected from the plurality of nozzles, and
Nakashima teaches a nozzle unit which includes
a plurality of piezoelectric elements which pressurize ink to be supplied to the plurality of nozzles to cause the ink to be ejected from the plurality of nozzles (Nakashima: ¶0035 & Fig. 1).
It would have been obvious to one of ordinary skill in the art before the effective filing date of the claimed invention to equip the plurality of nozzles taught by Maruta (i.e., “18”; ¶0041 & Fig. 2) with the piezoelectric elements taught by Nakashima, because piezoelectric-driven inkjet printing is an extremely common technique, as Nakashima teaches: “An ink jet printer widely used among the image formation apparatus forms ink droplets by pressure of piezoelectric elements”.
With respect to Claim 2, Maruta as modified by Nakashima teaches the inkjet control method according to claim 1. Note that Maruta Fig. 11 shows an example control method of the nozzle unit executing opening flushing processing for ejecting the ink towards the specific number of subsequent opening potions that pass through the print position subsequent to the previous sheet, wherein that specific number is 1 (Maruta: ¶0073). For the purposes of this claim, the examiner considers this operation (i.e., one opening portion passing prior to the next sheet being conveyed for printing) the baseline operation (i.e., the flushing operation that is not specific to any condition).
Nakashima teaches wherein the specific condition is a condition that a duration time of an ink non-ejection state of each of the plurality of nozzles from a start time point or middle of the print processing for the previous sheet to an end time point exceeds a reference time (i.e., “nozzle dry limit” and “predetermined flushing timing value” used within method steps “S11”-“S17”; Nakashima: ¶0055 & Fig. 5). Nakashima teaches that after each nozzle has exceeded its “nozzle dry limit” in combination with a “predetermined flushing timing value”, this initiates a specific flushing process of “simultaneous flushing”, a process that has a larger amount of flushing (i.e., 10 to 1,000 times the volume of liquid flushed during flushing operations that occur between each printing of an image; Nakashima: ¶0055 & Fig. 5). Therefore, Nakashima teaches that the simultaneous flushing process, which occurs under the condition that the claimed duration time exceeds a reference time, involves a method of flushing a volume of liquid beyond the standard quantity of flushing which occurs between each printing process. Using these teachings of Nakashima to modify Maruta, flushing a 1,000 times larger volume of liquid compared to the previously defined baseline operation, while conducting that flushing at the same flow rate, would require a longer duration of time for this type of flushing operation to occur. Given Maruta teaches the flushing operation occurs when the opening portions are positioned under the nozzles and that the belt containing these opening portions rotates over time (limitations discussed in claim 1), the additional time required to flush this additional volume results in the specific number of subsequent opening portions that pass through the print position subsequent to the previous sheet to be a larger specific number than the baseline operation (i.e., greater than 1, aka 2 or more). In other words, the longer flushing operation would flush into two or more of Maruta’s opening portions prior to the next sheet being conveyed for printing that would occur post-flushing.
It would have been obvious to one of ordinary skill in the art before the effective filing date of the claimed invention to enhance the method taught by Maruta with Nakashima because Nakashima improves the effectiveness of the flushing operation when the nozzles have been dormant over a longer period of time, teaching that a larger amount of flushing makes it “easy to eliminate the ink increased in viscosity to the dry limit” (Nakashima: ¶0055).
With respect to Claim 3, Maruta as modified by Nakashima teaches the inkjet control method according to claim 2, wherein
when the inkjet recording apparatus includes one or both of an internal temperature sensor which detects an internal temperature and an internal humidity sensor which detects an internal humidity (i.e., “second temperature sensor 42” which detects the temperature of the “recording heads 17a-17c” in “printer 100”; Maruta: ¶0049 & Fig. 4),
Maruta is silent on the processor corrects the reference time in accordance with a detection result of the one or both of the internal temperature sensor and the internal humidity sensor.
Nakashima teaches the processor corrects the reference time (i.e., by changing the flushing time portion of the reference time taught in claim 2) in accordance with a detection result of the one or both of the internal temperature sensor and the internal humidity sensor (i.e., data gathered from a temperature sensor and processed by “CPU 41”; Nakashima: ¶0041; Fig. 4, “CPU 41”, “61”).
It would have been obvious to one of ordinary skill in the art before the effective filing date of the claimed invention to take the temperature data detected by Maruta’s temperature sensor “42” (Maruta: ¶0049 & Fig. 4) in the processor using the method limitations claimed in Claim 3, because temperature can affect the drying time of the ink (e.g., at colder temperatures, the ink will become more viscous/drier faster) and therefore would require adjusted flushing timing (e.g., if the ink gets more viscous faster in the cold, the nozzles would require more flushing; Nakashima: ¶0041).
With respect to Claim 5, Maruta teaches an inkjet recording apparatus, comprising:
a belt conveying device which includes an endless conveying belt (i.e., “endless first conveyor belt 8”; Maruta: ¶0084 & Fig. 3) in which a plurality of opening portions each constituted of one or more through-holes are formed with intervals in a circumferential direction (i.e., “plurality of opening portion groups 82”; Maruta: ¶0084 & Fig. 8), and conveys a sheet on the conveying belt by causing the conveying belt to rotate (i.e., paper is conveyed in the “A” direction via belt “8” which is rotated via rollers, such as “6b”; Maruta: ¶0046 & Fig. 8);
a preceding conveying device which conveys the sheet to the belt conveying device (i.e., “registration roller pair 13” which conveys paper in the “A” direction to belt “8”; Maruta: ¶0046 & Fig. 8);
a nozzle unit which includes a plurality of nozzles (i.e., “plurality of ink ejection ports 18 (nozzles)” within “line heads 11Y to 11K”; Maruta: ¶0041 & Fig. 2) arranged opposed to a print position on an upper surface of the conveying belt (i.e., line heads 11Y to 11K are opposed to a position of the upper surface of “belt 8” where paper P is conveyed, where they eject ink via nozzles “18” towards the paper P; Maruta: ¶0041 & Fig. 3)
and is capable of executing print processing for forming an image on the sheet by ejecting the ink onto the sheet conveyed on the conveying belt (i.e., line heads 11Y to 11K eject ink via nozzles “18” towards the paper P being conveyed by the belt; Maruta: ¶0041 & Fig. 3); and
a processor which executes control of the nozzle unit (i.e., “control unit 110”; Maruta: ¶0033 & Fig. 4), wherein the control includes:
setting, for each target sheet that becomes a target to be conveyed by the preceding conveying device, a specific number of 1 or more in accordance with an ink ejection performance of the nozzle unit obtained at a time a previous sheet that is one sheet before the target sheet is conveyed by the belt conveying device (Maruta: ¶0077 & ¶0071; Fig. 3, “11Y to 11K”, “8”, “13”, and Fig. 9, “8”, “82F” & “P”);
causing the nozzle unit to execute opening flushing processing for ejecting the ink toward the specific number of subsequent opening portions that pass through the print position subsequent to the previous sheet out of the plurality of opening portions (Maruta: ¶0077 & ¶0071; Fig. 3, “11Y to 11K”, “8”, “13”, and Fig. 9, “8”, “82F” & “P”); and
causing the preceding conveying device to execute processing of conveying the target sheet to the belt conveying device at a timing at which the specific number of the subsequent opening portions have passed through a conveyance start position of the sheet on the conveying belt (i.e., control unit “110” controlling supply of paper “P” using belt sensors “24 & “25” which detect the positioning of the opening portion groups “82” via the positioning of the belt; Maruta: ¶0046), and
the processor sets the specific number to 1 when the ink ejection performance does not satisfy a specific condition, and sets the specific number to 2 or more when the ink ejection performance satisfies the specific condition (i.e., Maruta: ¶0073; Fig. 9-12, wherein control unit “110” can vary the conveyance of the target sheet in relation to the specific number of the subsequent opening potion passing the conveyance start position based on different operating conditions, such as ink ejecting onto a specific size of paper). Note that the control unit “110” selects the specific opening portions “82” of interest for flushing, and the positioning of these opening portions are determined based on the belt sensors (Maruta: ¶0046).
Maruta is silent on a nozzle unit which includes a plurality of piezoelectric elements which pressurize ink to be supplied to the plurality of nozzles to cause the ink to be ejected from the plurality of nozzles.
Nakashima teaches a nozzle unit which includes
a plurality of piezoelectric elements which pressurize ink to be supplied to the plurality of nozzles to cause the ink to be ejected from the plurality of nozzles (Nakashima: ¶0035 & Fig. 1).
It would have been obvious to one of ordinary skill in the art before the effective filing date of the claimed invention to equip the plurality of nozzles taught by Maruta (i.e., “18”; ¶0041 & Fig. 2) with the piezoelectric elements taught by Nakashima, because piezoelectric-driven inkjet printing is an extremely common technique, as Nakashima teaches: “An ink jet printer widely used among the image formation apparatus forms ink droplets by pressure of piezoelectric elements”.
Allowable Subject Matter
1. Claim 4 is 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 primary reasons for allowance for claim 4 is that applicant’s claimed invention includes an inkjet control method for controlling an inkjet recording apparatus having the steps of acquiring, by the processor, sheet length information expressing a length of the sheet in a conveying direction, selectively executing, by the processor, for each of the sheets, based on the sheet length information, one of first unit control for causing the nozzle unit to execute sheet flushing processing for ejecting the ink onto a non-drawing area that is an area to be not drawn in the sheet in parallel with the print processing and a second unit control in which the nozzle unit is not caused to execute the sheet flushing processing, where the processor executes the first unit control when the length expressed by the sheet length information is longer than a reference length, and executes the second unit control when the length expressed by the sheet length information is not longer than the reference length, and the specific condition is a condition that the sheet flushing processing with respect to the previous sheet has not been executed. It is this limitation, expressed in the claimed combination not found, taught, or suggested in the prior art that makes this claim allowable over the prior art.
Conclusion
Applicant's amendment necessitated the new ground(s) of rejection presented in this Office action. Accordingly, THIS ACTION IS MADE FINAL. See MPEP § 706.07(a). Applicant is reminded of the extension of time policy as set forth in 37 CFR 1.136(a).
A shortened statutory period for reply to this final action is set to expire THREE MONTHS from the mailing date of this action. In the event a first reply is filed within TWO MONTHS of the mailing date of this final action and the advisory action is not mailed until after the end of the THREE-MONTH shortened statutory period, then the shortened statutory period will expire on the date the advisory action is mailed, and any nonprovisional extension fee (37 CFR 1.17(a)) pursuant to 37 CFR 1.136(a) will be calculated from the mailing date of the advisory action. In no event, however, will the statutory period for reply expire later than SIX MONTHS from the mailing date of this final action.
Any inquiry concerning this communication or earlier communications from the examiner should be directed to SHLOMIT CHELST whose telephone number is (571)272-0832. The examiner can normally be reached on M-F from 8:30 am to 5:00 pm.
Examiner interviews are available via telephone, in-person, and video conferencing using a USPTO supplied web-based collaboration tool. To schedule an interview, applicant is encouraged to use the USPTO Automated Interview Request (AIR) at http://www.uspto.gov/interviewpractice.
If attempts to reach the examiner by telephone are unsuccessful, the examiner’s supervisor, Ricardo Magallanes, can be reached at telephone number 571-272-5960. The fax phone number for the organization where this application or proceeding is assigned is 571-273-8300.
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/SHLOMIT CHELST/ Examiner, Art Unit 2853
/GEOFFREY S MRUK/ Primary Examiner, Art Unit 2853 08/21/2026
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