PATENT CLAIM ANALYSIS

Application Number: 15935124
Application Type: Utility
Filing Date: 2018-03
Publication Date: 2019-09
Patent Classification: ["399", "015000"]

Abstract:
An image forming apparatus according to an embodiment includes an image acquisition unit, a heating unit, a presence-or-absence-of-an-image determination unit, an image formation unit, a determination unit, and a heating control unit. The image acquisition unit reads an image on a sheet. The heating unit heats the sheet. Based on the image that is read by the image acquisition unit, the presence-or-absence-of-an-image determination unit determines whether the image is printed on the sheet. The image formation unit forms the image on the sheet using a decolorable toner that is decolorized by heating the sheet to a prescribed temperature and a non-decolorable toner that is not decolorized although the sheet is heated. The determination unit determines whether to supply power to the heating unit, depending on an instruction which the decolorable toner is decolorized and on determination by the presence-or-absence-of-an-image determination unit whether the image is printed on the sheet.

Claim (Index 9):
A decolorization apparatus comprising:\n an image acquisition unit configured to optically read an image on a sheet; a heating unit configured to heat the sheet; a presence-or-absence-of-an-image determination unit configured to determine whether or not the image is printed on the sheet, based on the image that is read by the image acquisition unit; an image formation unit configured to form the image on the sheet using one or both of a decolorable toner that is decolorized by heating the sheet to a prescribed temperature or above and a non-decolorable toner that is not decolorized although the sheet is heated to the prescribed temperature or above; a determination unit configured to determine whether or not to supply power for heating the sheet to the heating unit, depending on determination of whether or not an instruction for the sheet to be heated by the heating unit to a temperature at which the decolorable toner is decolorized is input and additionally on determination by the presence-or-absence-of-an-image determination unit of whether or not the image is printed on the sheet; a heating control unit configured to control the heating unit based on the determination by the determination unit; a type-of-toner determination unit configured to determine whether the image is printed by the decolorable toner on the sheet or the image is printed by the non-decolorable toner on the sheet, based on the image on the sheet that is read by the image acquisition unit; a roller configured to transport the sheet; and an input unit configured to receive input of a decolorization instruction, wherein the determination unit determines that the power for heating the sheet is not supplied to the heating unit, if a result of the determination by the type-of-toner determination unit is a result showing that an image which results from the non-decolorable toner is printed, when the instruction for the sheet to be heated by the heating unit to the temperature at which the decolorable toner is decolorized is input into the apparatus itself, wherein the roller forms a plurality of transportation paths along which the sheet is transported, wherein the determination unit additionally determines a transportation path along which the sheet is transported by the roller, based on a result of the determination by the presence-or-absence-of-an-image determination unit, wherein the roller forms the transportation path along which the sheet is transported to a prescribed paper discharge destination without being transported to the heating unit, and wherein the determination unit determines the transportation path for the sheet, as a transportation path along which the sheet is transported to the prescribed paper discharge destination without being transported to the heating unit, if a result of the determination shows that the image is printed on the sheet and additionally, a result of the determination by the type-of-toner determination unit is a result of the determination showing that an image which results from the non-decolorable toner is printed on the sheet, when the instruction for the sheet to be heated by the heating unit to the temperature at which the decolorable toner is decolorized is input into the apparatus itself, and if the instruction for the sheet to be heated by the heating unit to the temperature at which the decolorable toner is decolorized is input into the apparatus itself and additionally, a result of the determination by the presence-or-absence-of-an-image determination unit is a result of the determination showing that the image is not printed on the sheet.

Metadata:
- Claim Count in Document: 5.0
- Percentile: 90.0
- Lexical Diversity: 3.24
- Patent Class: 399.0
- Transitional Phrase Type: open
- Component Type: 1
- Foreign Priority: False
- Related Applications: ['14482554', '15069965', '14718380', '15364058', '13493059']

Analysis Scores:
- 35 USC 101 Eligibility (BERT): 0.8134229453531943
- 35 USC 102 Novelty (BERT): 0.4758407847358054
- Combined Prediction Score: 0.7796647292914554
- Mean Citation Score: 229.325942
- Max Citation Score: 239.62762
- Similarity Product: 193.8195273403907

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