Ex Parte Lenkl

Board of Patent Appeals and Interferences

Jul 6, 2012

10312169 (B.P.A.I. Jul. 6, 2012)

UNITED STATES PATENT AND TRADEMARK OFFICE
____________

BEFORE THE BOARD OF PATENT APPEALS
AND INTERFERENCES
____________

Ex parte JOHANNES LENKL
____________

Appeal 2010-006279
Application 10/312,169
Technology Center 2800
____________

Before JOSEPH F. RUGGIERO, MAHSHID D. SAADAT,
and CARL W. WHITEHEAD, Jr., Administrative Patent Judges.

SAADAT, Administrative Patent Judge.

DECISION ON APPEAL

Appellant appeals under 35 U.S.C. § 134(a) from the rejection of
claims 22-27. Claims 1-21 have been canceled. We have jurisdiction under
35 U.S.C. § 6(b).
We affirm.
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Application 10/312,169

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STATEMENT OF THE CASE
Introduction
Appellant’s invention relates to a printer for printing color media in
conjunction with a thermal transfer printing process (see Spec. 2:23-27). 1
Claim 22, which is illustrative of the invention, reads as follows:
22. A space-saving printing apparatus, comprising:
a housing capable of mounting a supply roll of a
printable web,
a web path for travel of the web with respect to the
housing, the web path being comprised of first, second and
third parts in a generally Z-shaped arrangement,
an ink jet printer on the housing capable of printing data
in a plurality of colors on the first part of the web path,
a buffer for the web,
the second part of the web path extending from the first
part to the buffer, the buffer and the second part of the web path
being disposed underneath the ink jet printer and the first part
of the web path,
a thermal printer on the housing capable of printing data
on the web,
the third part of the web path extending from the buffer
to the thermal printer,
the thermal printer being disposed below the levels of:
the first part of the web path and the ink jet printer, and
the ink jet printer, the thermal printer, the buffer and the
web path being in a stacked arrangement.

1 Substitute Specification, filed March 9, 2004.
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Rejections
Claims 22, 24, 25, and 27 stand rejected under 35 U.S.C. § 103(a) as
being unpatentable over Wiklof (US 6,203,131 B1), Terauchi (US 6,474,806
B2), and Smith (US 5,020,244). (See Ans. 4-6).
Claims 23 and 26 stand rejected under 35 U.S.C. § 103(a) as being
unpatentable over Wiklof, Terauchi, Smith, and Suzuki (US 4,675,696).
(See Ans. 7).2
Appellant’s Contentions
With respect to the rejection of claim 22, Appellant contends that
Wiklof and Terauchi fail to teach all the recited features of the claim (Br. 14-
15). Appellant specifically asserts that Wiklof’s printer “relates to a
horizontally spread-out, space-wasting arrangement disposed along a
straight horizontal line except for the loop for the dancer roll 38” (Br. 14).
Appellant further contends that, in contrast with claim 22, “[i]n Wiklof no
part of any of the web is underneath any buffer or any second part of the
web path” (id.) nor “is any thermal printer in Wiklof below the levels of:
either a first part of a web path or an ink jet printer” (Br. 15). Regarding
Terauchi, Appellant argues that the reference, which is concerned with sheet
printing rather than the claimed web printing, fails to disclose a Z-shaped
web path with the claimed relationship with an ink jet printer and a thermal
printer (id.).3

2 As stated on page 3 of the Answer, the rejection of claims 22-27 under
35 U.S.C. § 112, second paragraph, has been withdrawn.
3 Appellant points out that the Examiner improperly relied on Smith for
teaching a dryer to reject claim 22 (Br. 15). The Examiner acknowledges
the oversight and clarifies that Smith is relied on to reject claim 25 which
recites a dryer (Ans. 10).
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With respect to the rejection of claim 24, Appellant contends that
because Wiklof does not disclose a Z-shaped path, the reference does not
disclose the claimed “direction-changing roll at a transition of first and
second parts of a Z-shaped web path” (Br. 16).
Regarding the remaining claims, Appellant merely relies on the same
arguments presented for claims 22 and 24 (Br. 16-18), or asserts that Suzuki
does not cure the deficiencies of Wiklof and Terauchi (Br. 18), allowing
these claims to stand or fall with independent claim 22 and dependent claim
24. See 37 C.F.R. § 41.37(c)(l)(vii).

ANALYSIS
We have reviewed the Examiner’s rejection in light of Appellant’s
contentions that the Examiner has erred. We disagree with Appellant’s
conclusions.
Claim 22
The Examiner takes the position that a space-saving configuration, as
described on page 5, lines 28-31 of the Specification, is achieved “if the path
of conveying movement of the support web extends substantially in a z-
shape from the ink jet printer unit to the thermal transfer printer unit” (Ans.
8). Additionally, the Examiner points out that the proposed combination is
based on modifying Wiklof by the stacked arrangement of the printer
elements in Terauchi (Ans. 9). Such modification, as stated by the Examiner
(Ans. 9-10), would result in a stacked configuration, similar to the rotated
version of Wiklof’s Figure 2 shown on page 10 of the Answer.
We agree with the Examiner’s analysis of Figure 2 of Wiklof and the
conclusion that one of ordinary skill in the art would have found it obvious
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to modify the printer of Wiklof by arranging the printer elements in a
stacked configuration, as suggested by Terauchi (Ans. 9-10). Wiklof’s
printer, when positioned in a stacked configuration, shows a first web path
extending from the supply roll 6 through guide rollers 12/14 and 18/20 (col.
5, ll. 4-21). Furthermore, the ink jet printer engine 15 prints color images on
a continuous strip of media and a thermal print engine 21 prints black and
white images on the media along a subsequent path extending from the
guide roller 38 to the roller 22 (col. 5, ll. 33-46). Wiklof further discloses
that a guide roller 38 is movably mounted between the two printers to permit
varying the length of the path by adjusting the position of the roller (col. 5,
ll. 53-66). Therefore, the stacked arrangement suggested by the Examiner
includes the specific stacked relationship among the printer elements and the
different path sections, configured in a generally Z-shaped arrangement,
positioned between the supply roll, ink jet printer, a buffer, and the thermal
printer, as recited in claim 22.
Claim 24
We also agree with the Examiner’s finding that column 5 of Wiklof
discloses the claimed “direction-changing roll at a transition of first and
second parts of a Z-shaped web path” as the roller 38 positioned between
rollers 12/14, 18/20, and 22 (Ans. 11). Contrary to Appellant’s contention
(Br. 16-17) that Wiklof does not disclose the features of claim 24 because no
Z-shaped path is disclosed, as discussed above regarding claim 22, the
Examiner has shown a generally Z-shaped path and different rollers for
changing the direction of the web path.

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CONCLUSION
On the record before us, we conclude that, because the references
teach or suggest all the claim limitations, the Examiner did not err in
rejecting claims 22 and 24. Therefore, we sustain the rejections of
independent claim 22 and dependent claim 24 for obviousness under
35 U.S.C. § 103(a), and of claims 23 and 25-27 falling therewith.

DECISION
The Examiner’s decision rejecting claims 22-27 is affirmed.
No time period for taking any subsequent action in connection with
this appeal may be extended under 37 C.F.R. § 1.136(a)(1)(iv).

AFFIRMED

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