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 .
Priority
Acknowledgment is made of applicant’s claim for foreign priority under 35 U.S.C. 119 (a)-(d). The certified copy of Japan Application No. 2021-192444 was received on 02 May 2025 as required by 37 CFR 1.55.
Drawings
The drawings filed on 23 April 2025 are accepted.
Specification
The lengthy specification has not been checked to the extent necessary to determine the presence of all possible minor errors. Applicant's cooperation is requested in correcting any errors of which applicant may become aware in the specification.
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 of this title, 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 set forth in Graham v. John Deere Co., 383 U.S. 1, 148 USPQ 459 (1966), that are applied 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 1 is rejected under 35 U.S.C. 103 as being unpatentable over Yamada (JP2008221796 A), using a machine translation.
With regard to Claim 1, Yamada discloses an inkjet printing apparatus (¶0001) comprising:
a print head including a plurality of nozzles, each discharging ink (¶0004);
a conveyance unit configured to convey a print medium relative to the print head (¶0027);
a cap configured to receive the ink discharged from the print head during preliminary discharge (¶0007);
an acquisition unit configured to acquire a post-printing ink amount when a print command is input for a print medium (¶0007, 0012-0013, a predicted amount of flushing in the head cap associated with the subsequent printing process is added to the current head cap amount), the post-printing ink amount being an amount of ink in the cap at a time of end of printing that is initiated by the print command (¶0007, 0012-0013; 0045, if the predicted amount is greater than a preset threshold value determined based on the allowable amount of ink stored in the head cap, discharge the ink from the cap); and
a discharge unit configured to perform a discharge operation to discharge the ink in the cap before start of the printing initiated by the print command if the post-printing ink amount acquired by the acquisition unit is greater than a threshold value (¶0012-0013; 0046-0047).
Yamada discloses to acquire a post-printing ink amount based on a subsequent printing job, however does not explicitly disclose when a print command is “input”. However, it would have been obvious to one of ordinary skill in the art before the effective filing date of the claimed invention that the print command has been inputted, in order for the acquisition and prediction of a post-printing ink amount to be known based on the subsequent printing job, thus the printing job must be known and “inputted” for that calculation to take place.
Conclusion
Any inquiry concerning this communication or earlier communications from the examiner should be directed to SCOTT A. RICHMOND whose telephone number is (313)446-6547. The examiner can normally be reached on M-F 9-6:00 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, Douglas Rodriguez can be reached on 571-431-0716. The fax phone number for the organization where this application or proceeding is assigned is 571-273-8300.
Information regarding the status of an application may be obtained from the Patent Application Information Retrieval (PAIR) system. Status information for published applications may be obtained from either Private PAIR or Public PAIR. Status information for unpublished applications is available through Private PAIR only. For more information about the PAIR system, see https://ppair-my.uspto.gov/pair/PrivatePair. Should you have questions on access to the Private PAIR system, contact the Electronic Business Center (EBC) at 866-217-9197 (toll-free). If you would like assistance from a USPTO Customer Service Representative or access to the automated information system, call 800-786-9199 (IN USA OR CANADA) or 571-272-1000.
/SCOTT A RICHMOND/Primary Examiner, Art Unit 2853
Prosecution Insights