PATENT CLAIM ANALYSIS

Application Number: 15980283
Application Type: Utility
Filing Date: 2018-05
Publication Date: 2018-09
Patent Classification: ["399", "067000"]

Abstract:
A fixing device according to an embodiment includes an endless belt, a pressure element, a heating member, an adjustment mechanism, and a controller. The pressure element conveys and presses a sheet to the endless belt. The heating member is on the inner side of the belt and has a heat generating element for heating the belt. The adjustment mechanism moves the heating member or the pressure element to adjust the nip width between the heating member and the pressure element. The controller controls the adjustment mechanism so that A>B≥N is satisfied, where A is the nip width during a fixing process in which a colored material is fixed to the sheet, B is the nip width during a heating process conducted before the fixing process, and N is the length of the heat generating element in the sheet conveyance direction.

Claim (Index 1):
A fixing device comprising:\n an endless belt; a pressure element configured to convey and press a sheet with the endless belt; a heating member provided on an inner side of the endless belt and having a heat generating element configured to heat the endless belt; an adjustment mechanism configured to move at least one of the heating member and the pressure element so as to adjust a nip width which is a length of an interposing and pressurizing region in a sheet conveyance direction, the interposing and pressurizing region being formed by the heating member and the pressure element with the endless belt under pressure therebetween; and a controller configured to control the adjustment mechanism so that A>B\u2265N is satisfied, where A is a nip width during a fixing process in which the sheet is heated to fix a toner image onto the sheet, B is a nip width during temperature raising of the heating member to be conducted before the fixing process, and N is a length of the heat generating element in the sheet conveyance direction.

Metadata:
- Claim Count in Document: 20.0
- Percentile: 93.0
- Lexical Diversity: 2.48387
- Patent Class: 399.0
- Transitional Phrase Type: open
- Component Type: 1
- Foreign Priority: True
- Related Applications: ['15624568', '12779163', '11806619', '13413034', '12785534']

Analysis Scores:
- 35 USC 101 Eligibility (BERT): 0.791081083465279
- 35 USC 102 Novelty (BERT): 0.5171227071147486
- Combined Prediction Score: 0.7636852458302259
- Mean Citation Score: 254.6135060000001
- Max Citation Score: 345.04736
- Similarity Product: 322.29616331439973

Labels:
- Claim Label 101: 1
- Claim Label 102: 1
- Claim Label 103: 1
- Claim Label 112: 1
- Combined Label: 1
- Label 101 Adjusted: 1

Dataset: test