PATENT CLAIM ANALYSIS

Application Number: 15970819
Application Type: Utility
Filing Date: 2018-05
Publication Date: 2018-11
Patent Classification: ["399", "328000"]

Abstract:
A fixing device includes a driving unit, a pressing roller, a heater, a fixing belt, a pressing roller, a nip formation pad that presses against an inner surface of the fixing belt toward the pressing roller via the fixing belt to form a nip, a separation mechanism, a lubricant between the fixing belt and the nip formation pad, and a processor to execute a warming-up operation of the fixing device. In the warming-up operation, before the heater heats the fixing belt, the separation mechanism moves the nip formation pad in a direction of separating the nip formation pad from the pressing roller to set a nip pressure lower than an ordinary nip pressure, and the driving unit rotates the pressing roller that rotates the fixing belt. Thereafter, the heater starts heating, and the separation mechanism moves the nip formation pad to contact the fixing belt at an ordinary nip pressure.

Claim (Index 1):
A fixing device comprising:\n a driving unit; a pressing roller rotated in a predetermined direction by the driving unit; a heater; a fixing belt heated by the heater, the fixing belt driven and rotated by friction between the pressing roller and the fixing belt; a nip formation pad that presses against an inner circumferential surface of the fixing belt toward the pressing roller via the fixing belt to form a nip through which a sheet is conveyed; a separation mechanism to move the nip formation pad in a direction of separating the nip formation pad from the pressing roller to lower a nip pressure of the nip formation pad with respect to the pressing roller; a lubricant in a portion where the fixing belt comes into sliding contact with the nip formation pad; and a processor to execute a warming-up operation at a predetermined timing, and configured to:\n control the separation mechanism to move the nip formation pad in the direction of separating before the heater heats the fixing belt, and cause the nip formation pad to contact the fixing belt with the nip pressure lower than an ordinary nip pressure, or release the nip formation pad from the fixing belt to set the nip pressure to zero; \n after the separation mechanism moves the nip formation pad, control the driving unit to start rotation of the pressing roller that contacts and rotates the fixing belt; \n after the rotation of the pressing roller, control the heater to start heating the fixing belt; and \n after the heater starts heating, control the separation mechanism to release movement of the nip formation pad, and cause the nip formation pad to contact the fixing belt at the ordinary nip pressure.

Metadata:
- Claim Count in Document: 16.0
- Percentile: 93.0
- Lexical Diversity: 2.96429
- Patent Class: 399.0
- Transitional Phrase Type: open
- Component Type: 1
- Foreign Priority: True
- Related Applications: ['14040866', '14084902', '14712439', '14084127', '14207748']

Analysis Scores:
- 35 USC 101 Eligibility (BERT): 0.8366053989223978
- 35 USC 102 Novelty (BERT): 0.5042219677701113
- Combined Prediction Score: 0.8033670558071692
- Mean Citation Score: 316.6362900000001
- Max Citation Score: 322.02585
- Similarity Product: 256.7870205693841

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

Dataset: test