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 § 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.
Claims 1 and 4 are rejected under 35 U.S.C. 102(a)(1) as being anticipated by Inoue (US PG Pub 2023/0068809).
For claim 1: Inoue teaches a sheet conveying device comprising: a conveying roller pair 8 that conveys a sheet toward an image transfer position j (see Fig. 2) at which a toner image formed by an image forming unit is transferred to the sheet; a resist roller pair 15 that is provided between the image transfer position j and the conveying roller pair 8; a sheet sensor 12 that is provided between the resist roller pair 15 and the conveying roller pair 8 and detects a leading edge of the sheet (see paragraph 38); a resist control unit 9, M3 that controls rotational driving of the resist roller pair 15 such that the sheet is conveyed by the conveying roller pair while the resist roller pair is stopped to deflect the sheet whose leading edge has reached the resist roller pair and then the sheet is fed out at predetermined feed timing in accordance with transfer start timing at which transfer of the toner image to the sheet starts at the image transfer position; and a conveying speed control unit that controls (see paragraph 60), on a basis of an elapsed time from predetermined writing timing at which light scanning on a photoreceptor drum included in the image forming unit starts to the leading edge detection timing at which the sheet sensor detects the leading edge of the sheet, a rotational speed of the conveying roller pair such that a feeding amount of the sheet after the leading edge detection timing is a predetermined reference conveying amount (see paragraph 60, Fig. 5).
For claim 4: Inoue teaches an image forming apparatus comprising the sheet conveying device of claim 1 (see Figs. 1 and 2) and a toner image being transferred to the sheet P conveyed by the sheet conveyance device to an image transfer position 216a, 217 (see Fig. 2)
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.
Claims 2 is rejected under 35 U.S.C. 103 as being unpatentable over Inoue (US PG Pub 2023/0068809) in view of Kanno et al. (US PG Pub 2014/0056630).
For claim 2: Inoue teaches all of the limitations of claim 2 and further teaches that the conveying speed control unit controls rotation of the conveying roller pair such that the sheet is conveyed at a predetermined initial speed Vd (see paragraph 53, speed V3) until the leading edge detection timing, controls, where the leading edge detection timing is predetermined reference timing, rotation of the conveying roller pair such that a conveying speed of the sheet gradually decreases from the initial speed Vd to a low set speed Vr lower than the initial speed Vd at predetermined reference deceleration start timing (see paragraph 53, process speed V4, occurring after leading edge registration and during performance of the printing process). Inoue does not specify that where the leading edge detection timing is earlier than the reference timing, first deceleration start timing earlier than the reference deceleration start timing by a time corresponding to the elapsed time, and controls rotation of the conveying roller pair such that the conveying speed of the sheet gradually decreases from the initial speed Vd to the low set speed Vr at the first deceleration start timing, and determines, where the leading edge detection timing is later than the reference timing, second deceleration start timing later than the reference deceleration start timing by a time corresponding to the elapsed time, and controls rotation of the conveying roller pair such that the conveying speed of the sheet gradually decreases from the initial speed Vd to the low set speed Vr at the second the deceleration start timing. However, Kanno et al. teaches where the leading edge detection timing is earlier than the reference timing, first deceleration start timing earlier than the reference deceleration start timing by a time corresponding to the elapsed time S1102, and controls rotation of the conveying roller pair such that the conveying speed of the sheet gradually decreases from the initial speed Vd to the low set speed Vr at the first deceleration start timing S1104, S1105, and determines, where the leading edge detection timing is later than the reference timing, second deceleration start timing later than the reference deceleration start timing by a time corresponding to the elapsed time S1106, and controls rotation of the conveying roller pair such that the conveying speed of the sheet gradually decreases from the initial speed Vd to the low set speed Vr at the second the deceleration start timing S1107. It would have been obvious to one of ordinary skill in the art at the time of the effective filing date of the invention to modify the invention of Inoue to adopt the speed adjusting timings based on the measured arrival timing as taught by Kanno et al. for the purpose of dynamically adjusting the sheet position to match with the expected sheet position.
Allowable Subject Matter
Claim 3 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 following is a statement of reasons for the indication of allowable subject matter: None of the prior art of record or any obvious combination thereof teaches a sheet conveying device having a conveying speed unit that controls, on a basis of an elapsed time from a predetermined writing timing at which the light scanning on a photoreceptor drum included in an image device starts to the leading edge detecting timing at which the sheet sensor detects the leading edge of the sheet, a rotational speed of the conveying roller pair such that a feeding amount of the sheet after the leading edge detection timing is a predetermined reference conveying amount wherein the speed control unit determines, where the leading edge detection timing is earlier than the reference timing, a first deceleration timing earlier than the reference deceleration timing by a time, and determines where the leading edge detection timing is later than the reference timing, to control rotation of the conveying roller pair such that the conveying speed of the sheet gradually decreases from the initial speed, and wherein the control unit controls the rotation of the resist roller pair such that a transfer conveying speed is faster than the initial speed after the feed timing and the conveying speed control unit controls the rotation of the conveying roller pair such that the sheet is conveyed at the transfer conveying speed after the feed timing as required in claim 3.
Conclusion
Any inquiry concerning this communication or earlier communications from the examiner should be directed to DAVID H BANH whose telephone number is (571)270-3851. The examiner can normally be reached M-F 12-8PM.
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/DAVID H BANH/Primary Examiner, Art Unit 2853