PATENT CLAIM ANALYSIS

Application Number: 16235078
Application Type: Utility
Filing Date: 2018-12
Publication Date: 2019-08
Patent Classification: ["399", "033000"]

Abstract:
An image forming apparatus has an image forming portion, a fixing device, a temperature sensing device, and a control portion. The fixing device has a fixing member having a heated rotary member and a pressing member forming a fixing nip by making contact with the heated rotary member. The temperature sensing device senses the surface temperature of at least one of the heated rotary member and the pressing member in a plurality of regions in the axial direction. The control portion estimates the thickness distribution of the surface layer of at least one of the heated rotary member and the pressing member in the axial direction based on the time taken for the surface temperature in the plurality of regions to reach the predetermined temperature, and thereby estimates the lifetime of at least one of the heated rotary member or the pressing member based on the estimated thickness distribution.

Claim (Index 4):
The image forming apparatus of  claim 2 , wherein\n when the thickness of the surface layer in any one of the plurality of regions is estimated to be equal to or smaller than a threshold value B (B>A), the control portion, by use of the notification device, gives a notification that prompts changing of a feed orientation of the recording medium passing through the fixing nip to another orientation to avoid an edge part of the recording medium passing through the region in which the thickness of the surface layer is estimated to be equal to or smaller than the threshold value B.

Metadata:
- Claim Count in Document: 9.0
- Percentile: 98.0
- Lexical Diversity: 2.85455
- Patent Class: 399.0
- Transitional Phrase Type: none
- Component Type: 0
- Foreign Priority: True
- Related Applications: ['12923473', '12929961', '13178411', '13763040', '15618819']

Analysis Scores:
- 35 USC 101 Eligibility (BERT): 0.839275739077566
- 35 USC 102 Novelty (BERT): 0.4975313583243841
- Combined Prediction Score: 0.8051013010022479
- Mean Citation Score: 255.693594
- Max Citation Score: 262.6517
- Similarity Product: 175.57242453727127

Labels:
- Claim Label 101: 1
- Claim Label 102: 0
- Claim Label 103: 1
- Claim Label 112: 1
- Combined Label: 0
- Label 101 Adjusted: 1

Dataset: test