PATENT CLAIM ANALYSIS

Application Number: 16033674
Application Type: Utility
Filing Date: 2018-07
Publication Date: 2019-01
Patent Classification: ["399", "328000"]

Abstract:
An image forming apparatus includes an image former, a fixing device, an image forming path, a circulation path and a hardware processor. Along the image forming path, paper is conveyed to the image former and the fixing device. The circulation path (i) diverges from the image forming path on a downstream side of the fixing device in a paper conveying direction and (ii) meets the image forming path on an upstream side of the image former in the paper conveying direction so as to circulate the paper such that an image forming side of the paper is unchanged. The hardware processor performs paper heating control to (i) make the paper pass through the fixing device without image forming on the paper, thereby heating the paper, and (ii) re-convey the paper via the circulation path to the image former.

Claim (Index 19):
An image forming method for an image forming apparatus including: an image former that forms a toner image on paper; a fixing device that fixes by heat the toner image formed on the paper by the image former; an image forming path along which the paper is conveyed to the image former and the fixing device; a reverse path that (i) diverges from the image forming path on a downstream side of the fixing device in a paper conveying direction and (ii) meets the image forming path on an upstream side of the image former in the paper conveying direction so as to circulate the paper such that an image forming side of the paper is changed to an opposite side; and a hardware processor, the image forming method comprising:\n with the processor, performing paper heating control to (i) make the paper pass through the heated fixing device without image forming on the paper, thereby heating the paper, and (ii) re-convey the heated paper via the reverse path to the image former.

Metadata:
- Claim Count in Document: 8.0
- Percentile: 95.0
- Lexical Diversity: 2.83636
- Patent Class: 399.0
- Transitional Phrase Type: open
- Component Type: 1
- Foreign Priority: True
- Related Applications: ['13462143', '12508844', '12897143', '11531034', '13129140']

Analysis Scores:
- 35 USC 101 Eligibility (BERT): 0.7772077896982084
- 35 USC 102 Novelty (BERT): 0.4783966311347912
- Combined Prediction Score: 0.7473266738418667
- Mean Citation Score: 203.509522
- Max Citation Score: 209.94472
- Similarity Product: 160.0379348980999

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