PATENT CLAIM ANALYSIS

Application Number: 15970848
Application Type: Utility
Filing Date: 2018-05
Publication Date: 2019-04
Patent Classification: ["399", "045000"]

Abstract:
An image forming apparatus includes a transfer unit, a contact unit, and a constant-current controller. The transfer unit nips a recording medium using an image retaining unit and a transfer member and generates a transfer electric field in a transfer region therebetween so as to electrostatically transfer the image onto the recording medium. The contact unit is provided upstream and downstream of the transfer region in a recording-medium transport direction and comes into contact with the recording medium while the recording medium passes through the transfer region, so as to function as an electrode leading to a ground. The constant-current controller performs constant-current control on a transfer current to be fed to the transfer region by using a transfer voltage when the recording medium is a low-resistance recording medium having a predetermined resistance value or lower or having an electrically-conductive layer along a medium base surface.

Claim (Index 2):
The image forming apparatus according to  claim 1 , further comprising:\n a determining unit that is capable of determining a type of recording medium traveling toward the transfer region, wherein the constant-current controller is determined as being necessary or not based on a determination signal of the determining unit.

Metadata:
- Claim Count in Document: 21.0
- Percentile: 93.0
- Lexical Diversity: 2.09589
- Patent Class: 399.0
- Transitional Phrase Type: open
- Component Type: 1
- Foreign Priority: True
- Related Applications: ['15945948', '15916321', '14063663', '14688018', '15613775']

Analysis Scores:
- 35 USC 101 Eligibility (BERT): 0.8099221168103723
- 35 USC 102 Novelty (BERT): 0.4926420629170489
- Combined Prediction Score: 0.77819411142104
- Mean Citation Score: 226.587474
- Max Citation Score: 251.37556
- Similarity Product: 169.57089700644258

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