Appeal No. 1999-1629
Application 08/510,491
. . ." (claim 1) does not preclude operating "said set of said
nozzles" as well the "other of said nozzles"; i.e., it does
not require operating only the other nozzles as argued.
Claim 1 does not preclude the use of a counter as a condition
for the controller to cause non-used nozzles to eject ink in
addition to the condition that there is no mail item in front
of the print head. While Appellant's invention does not
require a counter if the nozzles are purged after every
franking cycle (specification, p. 7, lines 29-32), it would
require a counter if the nozzles were purged every ten
franking cycles (specification, p. 8, line 7). Thus, a
counter is not inconsistent with the disclosed invention. It
is also noted that the limitation of "a reservoir disposed
below the print head at said print position into which said
ink is ejected by said other of said nozzles" (claim 1) does
not preclude the reservoir from capturing ink from all
nozzles, although it is disclosed that the reservoir can be
small and compact because it only has to collect ink purged
from the nozzles not used for printing (specification, p. 7,
lines 16-20).
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