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 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 2, 4 and 7 are rejected under 35 U.S.C. 103 as being unpatentable over Suwa US 11,530,101 (hereinafter “Suwa”) in view of Hattori JP 11-237771 A (hereinafter “Hattori”), in view of Fujii et al. WO 2023/276806 A1 (hereinafter “Fujii”), and further in view of Kitami US 2003/0222395 A1 (hereinafter “Kitami”).
Regarding claim 4, Suwa teaches a document conveying device comprising:
an operation device (c1 of 416) that accepts a user's instruction input thereto;
a document loading tray (30) that receives sheets of original document loaded thereon;
a document detection sensor (10) that detects presence or absence of any sheet of original document on the document loading tray;
a document ejection tray (17);
a feed roller (1) that is provided above the document loading tray and feeds the sheets of original document on the document loading tray sheet by sheet;
a document conveying mechanism (conveyance rollers of 200, shown in FIG. 4A) that conveys the sheet of original document fed by the feed roller to a reading position of a document reading device and ejects the sheet of original document conveyed to the reading position to the document ejection tray;
an elevating mechanism (312) that moves up and down the document loading tray between a predetermined lower limit position (“descended position”) and an upper limit position (“ascended position”) at which a top surface of an uppermost one of the sheets of original document loaded on the document loading tray presses against the feed roller (refer to “Second Embodiment” in col. 14, lines 25-58); and
a control device (301) that includes a processor and functions as a controller through the processor executing a control program,
wherein, when the document detection sensor has detected the presence of any sheet of original document on the document loading tray, the controller allows the elevating mechanism to move the document loading tray to a predetermined standby position located between the upper limit position and the lower limit position and stop the document loading tray at the standby position, and
wherein, upon acceptance of an instruction to read the original document through the operation device, the controller allows the feed roller to feed the sheet of original document on the document loading tray, allows the document conveying mechanism to convey the sheet of original document fed by the feed roller to the reading position, and allows the elevating mechanism to move up the document loading tray to the upper limit position.
Suwa teaches the claimed invention except the
controller allows the elevating mechanism to move the document loading tray to a predetermined standby position located between the upper limit position and the lower limit position and stop the document loading tray at the standby position upon passage of a predetermined first waiting time from when the document detection sensor has detected the presence of any sheet of original document on the document loading tray,
an ejected document detection sensor that detects presence or absence of any sheet of original document on the document ejection tray,
wherein when the presence of any sheet of original document on the document ejection tray is undetected by the ejected document detection sensor at a time the presence of any sheet of original document on the document loading tray has gone undetected by the document detection sensor, the controller waits for passage of a predetermined second waiting time from when the presence of any sheet of original document on the document ejection tray has been undetected by the ejected document detection sensor, and, upon passage of the second waiting time, controls drive of the elevating mechanism to move down the document loading tray to the lower limit position, and
wherein when the ejected document detection sensor detects the presence of any sheet of original document on the document ejection tray at the time the presence of any sheet of original document on the document loading tray has gone undetected by the document detection sensor, the controller waits for passage of a predetermined third waiting time from when the presence of any sheet of original document on the document ejection tray has been detected, and, upon passage of the third waiting time, controls the drive of the elevating mechanism to move down the document loading tray to a predetermined intermediate position located between the upper limit position and the lower limit position and stop the document loading tray at the intermediate position,
wherein when the presence of any sheet of original document on the document ejection tray goes undetected by the ejected document detection sensor while the controller allows the document loading tray to be stopping at the intermediate position, the controller waits for passage of a predetermined fourth waiting time from when the presence of any sheet of original document on the document ejection tray has gone undetected by the ejected document detection sensor, and, upon passage of the fourth waiting time, controls the drive of the elevating mechanism to move down the document loading tray to the lower limit position, and
wherein the controller sets each of the first waiting time, the second waiting time, the third waiting time, and the fourth waiting time in accordance with an instruction input through the operation device.
Hattori teaches the desirability to introduce a predetermined waiting time (refer to [0025]) before lifting a document loading tray (7) thereby allowing a user to properly set a document on the loading tray.
It would have been obvious to one of ordinary skill in the art, before the effective filing date of the claimed invention, to modify Suwa’s control device to provide a predetermined waiting time as taught by Hattori in order to allow a user to enough time to properly set the document on the loading tray prior to any movement of the loading tray, thereby preventing a misaligned fed document.
Fujii teaches a similar device with an ejected document detection sensor (18) to operate in the manner claimed ([0050], [0071], [0080]) for utilizing the capacity of the document loading tray depending the presence and absence of the document on the document ejection tray.
It would have been obvious to one of ordinary skill in the art, before the effective filing date of the claimed invention, to modify Suwa’s conveying device with an ejected document sensor and controller function as taught by Fujii in order to utilize the capacity of the document loading tray depending the presence and absence of the document on the document ejection tray.
Kitami is introduced for the known concept of allowing a user to arbitrarily set a waiting time for user convenience ([0135]-[0137]). It would have been obvious to one of ordinary skill in the art, before the effectively filed invention, to modify Suwa’s device with arbitrarily setting predetermined waiting times as taught by Kitami in order to allow a user the convenience to set the desired times (optimize according to user’s demands).
Regarding claim 2, while the combination of references is silent to teaching wherein when the controller accepts through the operation device the instruction to read the original document before the first waiting time passes from when the document detection sensor has detected the presence of any sheet of original document on the document loading tray, the controller allows the elevating mechanism to move up the document loading tray to the upper limit position before passage of the first waiting time, the examiner takes the position that it would have been obvious to one of ordinary skill in the art, before the effective filing date of the invention, to allow the operation device to overrule the predetermined 1st waiting time for further shortening the total time for the document to be ready to be conveyed.
Regarding claim 7, Suwa teaches an image forming apparatus (180) comprising:
the document conveying device according to claim 1;
a document reading device (150) that reads an image of a sheet of original document conveyed to a reading position; and
an image forming device (160) that forms the image on a recording medium.
Allowable Subject Matter
Claims 5-6 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.
Response to Arguments
Applicant’s arguments with respect to claim 4 have been considered but are moot because the new ground of rejection does not rely on any reference applied in the prior rejection of record for any teaching or matter specifically challenged in the argument.
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 LUIS A GONZALEZ whose telephone number is (571)270-3094. The examiner can normally be reached 9am-5:30pm.
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If attempts to reach the examiner by telephone are unsuccessful, the examiner’s supervisor, Michael McCullough can be reached at 571-272-7805. The fax phone number for the organization where this application or proceeding is assigned is 571-273-8300.
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/LUIS A GONZALEZ/ Primary Examiner, Art Unit 3653
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