PATENT CLAIM ANALYSIS

Application Number: 15892917
Application Type: Utility
Filing Date: 2018-02
Publication Date: 2019-08
Patent Classification: ["399", "099000"]

Abstract:
A system and method for urging stray toner away from sealing areas on rotating shafts in electrostatic process units includes a shaft that is associated with a rotating component of the electrostatic process unit such as a toner mixer, a waste auger, a developer, or a photoconductive drum. The shaft includes sealing areas at either end of the shaft that are configured to prevent toner leakage through the sealing areas, and protruding ridges in the sealing areas that encircle the shaft. The protruding ridges are angled relative to the axis of the shaft such that rotation of the shaft causes the protruding ridges to urge stray toner away from the sealing areas. The protruding ridges substantially reduce toner leakage through the sealing areas of rotating shafts of electrostatic process units.

Claim (Index 18):
A method, comprising:\n initiating a print operation on a print engine; rotating, in response to the print operation, at least one shaft associated with a rotatable component of an electrostatic process unit (EPU) of the print engine, the at least one shaft including an end plate, a sealing area configured to inhibit toner leakage through the sealing area, the sealing area including a stray toner area disposed between the end plate and a protruding angled ridge in the sealing area configured to urge toner toward the stray toner area when the shaft is rotated; and urging, by the protruding angled ridge, toner away toward the stray toner area while the shaft is rotated.

Metadata:
- Claim Count in Document: 4.0
- Percentile: 88.0
- Lexical Diversity: 2.22581
- Patent Class: 399.0
- Transitional Phrase Type: open
- Component Type: 1
- Foreign Priority: False
- Related Applications: ['15714702', '13845406', '14976001', '13340944', '13717923']

Analysis Scores:
- 35 USC 101 Eligibility (BERT): 0.7863332611612247
- 35 USC 102 Novelty (BERT): 0.4773257657445452
- Combined Prediction Score: 0.7554325116195567
- Mean Citation Score: 159.237576
- Max Citation Score: 220.53944
- Similarity Product: 165.110338403244

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