Appeal No. 96-3340
Application 08/363,087
BACKGROUND
The present invention relates to a system for supplying liquid ink to the print head of
an ink-jet printing apparatus. The system consists of a housing for an ink-jet printer
cartridge. Within the housing are three areas for ink storage. A first area comprises a
majority of the volume of the housing and is filled with a porous material having a capillary
force to hold the liquid ink. A second area in the housing includes a "scavenger" member
which has a smaller volume than the first area, but has a higher capillary force than the first
member. A third area is an open space having no porous material therein. The
combination of the three areas provides the flow of liquid ink to the print head. The
"scavenger" member feeds the ink to the print head and draws ink from the other two
areas. As the ink is supplied to the print head and depleted from the housing a negative
pressure is generated in the housing. The three areas are disclosed as having the liquid
ink communicate therebetween to reduce the back pressure to an acceptable range for
proper operation of the printer and to prevent leakage of the liquid ink.
2
Appellants have indicated that all claims stand or fall together. (Brief at page 5.)
3
Independent claim 1 is representative of the invention and reproduced as follows:
2 Appellants filed an appeal brief, January 22, 1996, (Paper No. 10). We will refer to this
substitute appeal brief as simply the brief.
3 We have reviewed claim 1 (as amended) in light of the specification as originally filed and note
that we do not find explicit support in the specification or the originally filed claims for the relationship of the
open space to the size of the scavenger member or clear support of the functional relationship of the
2
Page: Previous 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 Next
Last modified: November 3, 2007