Appeal No. 2001-0865
Application 08/998,781
image has been formed. The examiner considers the time of
forming an image in Saruwatari to be a "print recognition time";
see EA4. However, since "print recognition time" has a specific
meaning in the claims and is "determined in accordance with said
transmission time" which time is not discussed in Saruwatari, it
is more accurate to say that Saruwatari discloses "performing a
print environment recognition operation" at a print engine start
time because it checks environmental conditions when the print
engine is started. The fact that Saruwatari also teaches
performing an additional print environment recognition operation
(sensing the image density) after the print engine is started is
not precluded by the claim language.
Saruwatari discloses that control of the image forming
apparatus based on the detection of environmental conditions
allows formation of a high quality image even if environmental
conditions change over time (abstract; col. 4, lines 32-41). We
find that this constitutes a suggestion to modify the printer of
Zimmerman to use the print environment recognition operations of
Saruwatari, at the print engine start time (the "print
recognition time") for the purpose of maintaining a high quality
image in the printer. Thus, we are not persuaded by appellant's
arguments (e.g. Br16) that there is no motivation for the
proposed combination. Nor do we agree that the combination is
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