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 17):
An image forming 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 that makes the printing of the image on the sheet possible to the image information unit or the heating unit, depending on determination of whether or not an instruction for the image to be printed by the decolorable toner or the non-decolorable toner on the sheet is input and additionally on determination by the image information unit of whether or not the image is printed on the sheet; a heating control unit configured to control the image formation unit and 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; and a roller configured to transport the sheet, 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 a 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 along which the sheet is discharged to the prescribed paper discharge destination without being transported to the heating unit, if a result of the determination by the presence-or-absence-an-image determination unit is a result of the determination showing that the image is printed on the sheet, when an instruction for the image to be printed by the decolorable toner or the non-decolorable toner on the sheet is input into the apparatus itself.

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): 0.8134523755435094
- 35 USC 102 Novelty (BERT): 0.4756288519590249
- Combined Prediction Score: 0.7796700231850608
- Mean Citation Score: 229.325942
- Max Citation Score: 239.62762
- Similarity Product: 194.31481612839585

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