Appeal No. 1999-1629
Application 08/510,491
This is a decision on appeal under 35 U.S.C. § 134 from
the final rejection of claims 1 and 3-10.
We affirm-in-part.
BACKGROUND
The disclosed invention relates to a franking machine
having an inkjet print head. Inkjet print heads have a row of
nozzles mounted perpendicular to the direction of movement of
the mail items, which nozzles are individually controlled to
print a postal mark. The postal marks have a dimension,
imposed by the postal authorities, which is less than the
length of the row of nozzles. Consequently, not all of the
nozzles are excited to print the postal mark. The problem is
that if any nozzle is not excited for some time, the ink
inside it tends to dry, which clogs the nozzle, and the dried
ink in the nozzle is likely to block any movement of the
piezoelectric walls of the nozzle in question. "This
phenomenon of immobilization of the piezoelectric walls of a
nozzle propagates from nozzle to nozzle and eventually leads
to general dysfunctioning of the print cartridge."
(Specification, p. 3, lines 11-14).
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