Appeal No. 2003-1883
Application No. 08/953,488 Page 2
BACKGROUND
Appellants' invention relates to an image forming apparatus.
An understanding of the invention can be derived from a reading
of exemplary claim 27, which is reproduced as follows:
27. An image forming apparatus comprising:
image forming means for forming an image on a record sheet
based on image data supplied from connected terminal apparatuses;
discharging means for discharging the record sheet on which
the image is formed;
a plurality of bins for housing discharged record sheets;
bin designating means for designating a bin for each of the
terminal apparatuses when the image data is supplied from a
terminal apparatus to the image forming apparatus;
record sheet number detecting means for detecting a number
of record sheets housed in the bins; and
priority setting means for setting priorities for the bins
to which a record sheet may be discharged;
wherein when the designating bin is filled with the record
sheets an additional sheet is discharged to another bin according
to the priorities.
The prior art references of record relied upon by the
examiner in rejecting the appealed claims are:
Mandel et al. (Mandel) 5,599,009 Feb. 4, 1997
Salgado 5,777,882 Jul. 7, 1998
Claims 2, 18, 19, and 27 stand rejected under 35 U.S.C.
§ 102(e) as being anticipated by Mandel.
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