US 6785727

I'll verify this patent number against live sources and check for any litigation or CAFC activity.

Let me check for any litigation or CAFC docket activity involving this patent.

Let me attempt to retrieve the actual claim text, since the fetched page omitted the claims section.

US Patent 6,785,727 — Verified Summary

I searched live sources (Google Patents, Justia, Unified Patents portal, RPX Insight, EPO Global Patent Index) and queried for CAFC/litigation activity. Findings below. Note up front: I found no CAFC 2026 docket entry, IPR, or district-court case naming U.S. Patent 6,785,727. The closest "727" hits in search results were for a different patent — U.S. 7,671,727 (Omega Patents v. CalAmp) — which I excluded per your instruction not to conflate similar numbers. Absence of litigation in these results is not proof none exists; I could not access PACER/CAFC docket search directly.

Bibliographic data

Source: https://patents.google.com/patent/US6785727/en ; https://portal.unifiedpatents.com/patents/patent/US-6785727-B1

Assignee caveat: The Unified Patents portal snippet lists "Hewlett-Packard Development Co LP" near this record, but that appears to be from a citing/related wireless-printing reference in its citation list, not an assignment of the '727 patent. Google Patents and Justia both identify Canon as original and current assignee. I flag this because the search output was ambiguous; I do not treat HP as an assignee of '727.

Abstract (as issued)

"To provide an image processor making it possible to reserve a printer even if no job is generated and to be shared by a plurality of users in order to preferentially and securely process a job of a reserver in a reserved time zone, which accepts a reservation of a job while no job is received, secures resources used for the reserved job, and controls the reserved job by using the resources secured by the securing means."

Plain-language overview of the independent claims

The core inventive concept, restated in the specification's own words: an image processor shared by multiple users "comprising first setting means for reserving and setting a job-processing time zone, second setting means for setting a job control method in the reserved time zone, and job control means for processing a job of a reserver preferentially to other users in a set reserved time zone."

In plain terms, the independent claims appear to cover:

1. Image-processor apparatus claim — a printer/copier/MFP shared by users that (a) lets a user reserve a future processing time window even before any job exists, (b) lets the reserver select how other users' jobs are handled in that window (e.g., reject all non-reserver jobs, or process the reserver's jobs with top priority while still allowing others), and (c) a controller that enforces that priority in the reserved window. (The specification text quoted above is the apparatus-claim summary.)
2. Resource-securing claim — securing physical/logical resources (sheets in a feed tray or intermediate tray, print-queue memory capacity) in advance for the reserved job, so the reserved job can be executed reliably even if paper otherwise runs short.
3. Corresponding control-method claim — the same first-setting / second-setting / job-control steps as a method.
4. Computer-readable memory-medium / program-product claims — storing a program implementing the control method, and a host-side program for an information processor that requests the reservation.

The specification frames this as distinguishing over the background art (e.g., JP-A-8-335147, which reserves print jobs and priorities but cannot reserve the printer when no job exists). It also notes that a plain "scheduled output time" printing system does not reserve resources, risking paper-deficiency errors at the scheduled time.

Uncertainty note (important): The full Google Patents text supplied to me was truncated before the formal "Claims" section, so I could not authoritatively verify the exact independent-claim numbers or verbatim claim language. The claim numbers I did observe are from secondary aggregators and are partly from the continuation publication (US 2003/0208607 A1), whose claim numbering differs from the issued patent:

• RPX Insight (for US 6,785,727 B1) shows verified dependent claims 31–33, 38–41, 43, and 45, referencing an independent memory-medium claim 29 and a program-product claim 43.
• Justia's page for the continuation publication shows method claim 25 and memory-medium claim 49 — these belong to the publication, not necessarily to the granted '727 numbering.
  So treat the specific claim numbers in items 3–4 above as probable but unverified; the claim categories (apparatus / method / memory medium / program product, plus a resource-securing feature) are well supported by the title and abstract.

Other verified artifacts

• EPO Global Patent Index EP 1 847 929 A1 cites US 6,785,727 B1 (Yamazaki) as background art [A], citing "column 1, line 63 – column 2, line 16; column 7, line 61 – column 10, line 67; figures 1–23." (http://data.epo.org/gpi/EP1847929A1)
• Later patents cite '727 (e.g., US 9,122,468 B2 lists it as "US6785727B1 … 1998-12-24 … Canon Kabushiki Kaisha").

Bottom line

US 6,785,727 is a Canon patent (inventor Yamazaki) on time-zone/calendar reservation of a shared printer by a user, including pre-reservation of physical and memory resources, issued 2004-08-31 from an application filed 1999-12-22 claiming 1998-12-24 priority. It is expired (fee-related). I found no CAFC or litigation activity for this number in the sources searched; if you need a definitive litigation check, a direct PACER/CAFC docket query or a paid litigation database should be run, since my search tools returned no docket entry either way.

I'll research litigation involving US patent 6785727. Let me search multiple sources.

Let me search more targeted litigation sources.

Let me check litigation-specific databases directly.

Litigation Search: U.S. Patent No. 6,785,727

Bottom line

I found no record of any patent litigation — filed, pending, or decided — involving U.S. Patent No. 6,785,727. Searches of patent-litigation aggregators (Unified Patents portal, RPX/Insight, CourtListener/ReCAP, and general case-law sources) returned only the patent's bibliographic, family, and citation data, and no case naming this patent as a patent-in-suit. This is a negative finding based on the sources available to me; it is not a certified "no litigation ever existed" conclusion.

What the record does show for US 6,785,727

Source: Google Patents, https://patents.google.com/patent/US6785727/en; Unified Patents patent page, https://portal.unifiedpatents.com/patents/patent/US-6785727-B1

Important disambiguation warning (do not confuse these with US 6,785,727)

My searches surfaced several items containing the digit string "6785727" or a "'727" shorthand that are unrelated to this patent:

• JP Patent No. 6785727 B2 — a Japanese patent owned by Hitachi Johnson Controls Air Conditioning (a compressor/outdoor-unit air-conditioner case), application JP 2017-128549. Different patent, different jurisdiction, different subject matter.
• "the '727 patent" in Canon toner-cartridge suits (e.g., the N.D. Ga. and E.D. Tex. / Delaware actions against Color Imaging, General Plastic, and others, ~2011–2018) — this shorthand refers to a different Canon patent in the 7,xxx,xxx range (toner/process-cartridge patents such as the '826, '021, '728, '729, '764, '765, '960, '846 family). It is not US 6,785,727.
• Omega Patents, LLC v. CalAmp Corp. (M.D. Fla., No. 6:13-cv-19500) — the "727 patent" there is US 7,671,727 (vehicle telematics). Unrelated.
• A FDA/FAERS case number "6785727" in an adverse-event report — unrelated administrative identifier.

Cases

None. No plaintiff, defendant, jurisdiction, case number, filing date, or outcome can be reported, because no case asserting US 6,785,727 was located.

Caveats and suggested verification

• I could not query PACER directly, and some aggregator pages (e.g., the Unified Patents litigation panel) did not render a litigation list in the retrieved content. If any enforcement existed, it would most plausibly have occurred during the patent's enforceable life (2004–2019) and would most likely have named Canon as plaintiff/assignee, since HP is shown only as a downstream assignee reference.
• Given the patent expired for fee-related reasons, any hypothetical suits would now be closed; nothing was found regardless.
• For an authoritative confirmation, check the USPTO Patent Center "Litigation" tab, Docket Navigator, and PACER for the patent number, and confirm the Canon US 09/470,207 family's litigation history.

If you'd like, I can run additional targeted searches (e.g., Canon as plaintiff in printer/time-reservation cases, or the US 2003/0208607 A1 continuation) to try to surface any non-indexed enforcement activity.

Proceedings overview

Zero AIA trial proceedings are on file against US 6,785,727. The structured "PTAB proceedings on file" block — sourced from the USPTO Open Data Portal, the canonical list — returns no IPR, PGR, or CBM for this patent, and my independent web searches (PTAB petition dockets, Docket Alarm PTAB records, CourtListener, and the Google Patents/Unified Patents litigation tabs for US‑6785727‑B1) surfaced no petition, institution decision, final written decision, or Federal Circuit appeal naming this patent as the challenged patent. Breakdown: 0 active / 0 claims invalidated / 0 claims sustained / 0 settled / 0 institution denied. Bottom line for a defendant: there is no IPR-based invalidity shortcut here, and no IPR record to mine — the patent's claims stand exactly as issued. The far more consequential fact is that the patent's own term ran out: Google Patents lists "Expired – Fee Related" with an anticipated expiration of 2019‑12‑22 (20 years from the 1999‑12‑22 filing date; priority 1998‑12‑24). Whether that expiration is dispositive depends entirely on the dates of the accused conduct, not on any PTAB outcome.

No proceeding sections follow, because there are no proceedings to describe. What follows is what the absence means and where I looked.

Strategic summary

Claim status: all claims UNTESTED at the PTAB; none canceled, none sustained in an AIA trial. Because no IPR/PGR/CBM was ever filed, there is no claim-level adjudication to cite. The public record shows only an ex parte examination history and a continuation practice — Google Patents reports a domestic priority/continuation link to US 10/429,708 (published as US 2003/0208607 A1) and a single inventor, Masahito Yamazaki, assigned to Canon Kabushiki Kaisha (assignment recorded 2000‑03‑28). The claimed subject matter spans method claims (e.g., claim 1's "first setting step"/"second setting step" reservation-and-control-mode architecture), apparatus/image‑processor claims, memory‑medium claims (claim 29 et seq., with the first/second control modes and resource-securing steps at claims 36–40), and program‑product claims (claim 43 et seq., including the interrupt-of-an-unreserved-job limitation at claim 48). All of that is the issued text — nothing has been canceled or narrowed by the Board.

Estoppel landscape: § 315(e)(2) is a non-issue. There is no petitioner, no privity chain, and therefore no estoppel attaching to any prior art. Any defendant is free to raise any § 102/§ 103/§ 112 ground in district court, including art that would have been IPR-eligible — subject only to the normal IPR time bar (which cuts the other way: a would-be petitioner's one-year § 315(b) window, if it ever opened, has long since closed). The practical asymmetry is worth stating plainly: the absence of IPRs means the patent has never been stress-tested by the PTAB's Phillips-based obviousness machinery, so both its strength and its weakness are unmeasured. It also means there is no estoppel-created "second-best art" gap for a defendant to exploit — the whole prior-art universe is still open.

Pattern signals: none of the usual markers. No serial petitioner (the Canon IPR campaigns visible in my searches — e.g., Canon Inc. v. Optimum Imaging Technologies LLC, IPR2020‑01321/‑01322, and Canon v. Slingshot Printing, IPR2022‑01414/‑01415/‑01416/‑01541 and IPR2023‑00309/‑00313 — target entirely different patents such as U.S. 8,451,339, 7,195,341, 7,938,523, 7,152,951, 7,290,864, 7,594,708, and 7,559,629). No defensive aggregator chain: the Unified Patents portal merely hosts a static patent page for US‑6785727‑B1; there is no Unified Patents filed challenge. No Federal Circuit appeal, because there is no Board decision to appeal. One incidental data point: US 6,785,727 appears in an exhibit table (filed 2020‑12‑10) in Hulu‑related IPR2021‑00308 as a listed prior-art reference — i.e., it was cited as art against someone else's patent, not challenged itself. Treat that as evidence of its prior-art value, not of PTAB exposure.

Recommended next steps

• If you are a defendant, do not plan around PTAB outcomes — there are none. Link your invalidity case directly to the district-court record and to the patent's expiration, not to any FWD. There is no FWD to quote or link.
• Lead with the expiration/priority math and the accused-conduct dates. The 1998‑12‑24 priority and 1999‑12‑22 filing mean the enforceable term ended 2019‑12‑22. For any accused conduct after that date, the patent cannot reach it; for pre‑expiration conduct, damages are limited to the pre‑expiration window and you should verify the interim maintenance-fee lapse that produced the "Expired – Fee Related" status (pre‑expiration lapse and any § 41(c) late-payment/petition window can affect enforceability of the pre‑lapse period — check the fee record in USPTO Patent Center for the application number 09/470,207).
• If you nonetheless want PTAB-style invalidity research, run the search yourself on the Board's own systems rather than relying on third-party aggregators: PTAB E2E / the PTAB public search (https://ptacts.uspto.gov) and the Patent Trial and Appeal Board section of USPTO; the Google Patents page (https://patents.google.com/patent/US6785727/en) and the Unified Patents page (https://portal.unifiedpatents.com/patents/patent/US-6785727-B1) are useful cross-checks but are not authoritative for proceeding counts.
• Confidence and caveats. I have high confidence that the ODP-derived list is empty and moderate-to-high confidence that the public web record shows no AIA trial against this patent, based on multiple targeted searches. I cannot rule out a very recently filed, not-yet-indexed petition (ODP ingest lags), so before finalizing a defensive posture, re-run the PTAB E2E search on the exact patent number 6,785,727 and confirm the fee/expiration record. Also note the recurring number-collision hazard in this space: "the '727 patent" in the search results almost always refers to U.S. 7,671,727 (Omega Patents) or to a '727 in another family — none of those are this patent, and none should be attributed here.

Sourcing note on what I could and could not verify: no PTAB Final Written Decision, institution decision, or CAFC opinion for US 6,785,727 was located, so no claim-level verdicts, judge panels, grounds, or appeal dockets are reported above — because none exist in the public record I could find. I have not invented any proceeding numbers, panels, or dispositions to fill the template.

I'll research the assignment record before writing anything. Let me pull the relevant sources.

Let me verify the recorded assignment details and check for any litigation or later transfers.

Let me try to pin down the reel/frame for the recorded assignment and check NPE assertion directories.

I hit the tool-call budget before I could pull the Assignment Center record directly. Here is what the available evidence supports — and I've been explicit about the one field I could not verify.

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Assignment Reconstruction — US 6,785,727 B1

Patent: US 6,785,727 B1 — "Image processor for processing reservation and information processor for requesting reservation"
Application: 09/470,207 · filed 1999-12-22 · priority JP 1998-12-24 · issued 2004-08-31
Current assignee of record (per Google Patents legal events): Canon Kabushiki Kaisha / Canon Inc.

Data-access caveat: I was unable to open the USPTO Assignment Center record for this patent within the tool budget available. The assignment below is reconstructed from the Google Patents legal-events table supplied in the source document and corroborating search results. Three fields — reel/frame, execution date, and correspondent of record — could not be verified and are marked as such rather than estimated. Treat those as open items to confirm at the Assignment Center.

Inventors

Only one inventor is named, so the classic multi-inventor red flag (all inventors leaving the original assignee within 12 months of filing, preceding a portfolio fire-sale) is structurally inapplicable here. No inventor-departure data is publicly determinable from the sources reviewed. I found no evidence of Yamazaki filing outside Canon or of a subsequent inventor-side transfer.

Original assignee

Canon Kabushiki Kaisha (Canon Inc.), 30-2 Shimomaruko 3-chome, Ohta-ku, Tokyo 146-8501, Japan — named on the face of the issued patent.

• Product embodiment: Yes, directly. The patent covers reserving printer time zones and job-control policy within a reserved window, settable from a host-side driver dialog (FIG. 6/19) or the printer's own operation panel (1012). This maps onto the reservation/walk-up-interrupt functionality of Canon's imageCLASS / i-SENSYS / imageRUNNER LBP and multifunction product lines, which the specification itself targets (laser-beam printer of FIG. 1, composite reader/printer unit of FIG. 23).
• Primary line of business: Imaging and optical products — office MFPs, laser and inkjet printers, cameras, semiconductor lithography and medical/industrial optical equipment.
• Current status: Operating. Canon Inc. is a publicly traded, going concern (TSE: 7751; NYSE: CAJ). It is not acquired, dissolved, or in bankruptcy. Canon is an active patent assertor in its own right — e.g., the toner-cartridge campaigns reported in RPX litigation records, and its IPR petitions against Slingshot Printing LLC and Optimum Imaging Technologies LLC — but none of those matters involve the '727 patent.

Assignment timeline

Exactly one recorded assignment exists in the chain, and it is the original inventor-to-employer assignment. There are no post-issuance assignments.

• Executed: [not retrieveable from available sources] / recorded 2000-03-28 — Reel/Frame [not verified]
  • Conveyance: Assignment (Google Patents labels it "ASSIGNMENT OF ASSIGNOR'S INTEREST (SEE DOCUMENT FOR DETAILS)")
  • Assignor: Yamazaki, Masahito
  • Assignee: CANON KABUSHIKI KAISHA
  • Correspondent: Not determined. I could not retrieve the correspondent-of-record for this reel/frame. I am not naming a firm, because guessing here would defeat the purpose of the recurrent-correspondent test.
  • Context: Standard inventor-to-employer assignment of rights; no reorganisation, sale, or third-party transfer.

Family note — not an assignment. The Google Patents legal-events table shows "Priority to US10/429,708" on 2003-05-06, published as US 2003/0208607 A1. That is a Canon-owned continuation of the same disclosure (also listing Canon Kabushiki Kaisha as applicant), i.e., an intra-Canon filing event. It is not a transfer of rights and should not be counted as a chain link.

Family status event. 2019-12-22 — anticipated expiration; Google Patents legal status reads "Expired – Fee Related."

Timeline diagram

timeline
    title Ownership of US 6785727
    1998 : JP priority application filed
    1999 : US application 09/470207 filed
    2000 : Inventor Yamazaki assigns to Canon
    2003 : Canon continuation filed as US 20030208607
    2004 : Patent issues to Canon Kabushiki Kaisha
    2019 : Term expires with Canon still owner

NPE / troll-pattern signals

1. Shell-entity transfer — Not present. No assignment out of Canon appears on the record at all. There is no "IP / Holdings / Licensing / Ventures" assignee, no single-purpose LLC, and no registered-agent address in the chain.
2. Known asserter in the chain — Not present. The only assignee is Canon Kabushiki Kaisha, an operating company. It matches none of the listed asserters (Acacia, Marathon, IV, IPNav, Wi-LAN, Conversant/Mosaid, Vringo, Pendrell, Innovatio, MPHJ, Lumen View, Round Rock, Document Generation Corp, or Spangenberg entities). I also found no Unified Patents or RPX assertion entry naming US 6,785,727.
3. Repeat correspondent across the chain — Unclear / not determinable. A single-link chain cannot exhibit recurrence, and I could not retrieve the correspondent of record for the 2000-03-28 recording. This test is simply unevaluable on one link.
4. Cascading transfers — Not present. One assignment in 20 years of enforceability; zero consecutive LLC-to-LLC hops.
5. Pre-litigation transfer — Not present. My searches surfaced no infringement suit naming the '727 patent. The Canon suits that did surface (toner cartridges; Slingshot Printing; Optimum Imaging) assert entirely different patent numbers and are Canon asserting its own portfolio, not a transferee asserting.
6. Bankruptcy fire-sale — Not present. No Chapter 7/11 of Canon; no reorganisation sale.
7. Privateering — Not present. No transfer to an assertion vehicle on Canon's behalf.
8. Defensive aggregator (anti-NPE) — Not present. The chain does not terminate at RPX, AST, LOT, Unified Patents, or OIN; it never left Canon.

Verdict

Insufficient data (only the original assignment).

The strongest reading of the evidence is a negative NPE finding: US 6,785,727 shows exactly one recorded assignment — the inventor-to-employer assignment recorded 2000-03-28, Yamazaki → CANON KABUSHIKI KAISHA — with no post-issuance transfers whatsoever, a single sole inventor, and a term that ran to its 2019-12-22 anticipated expiration with Canon still the owner. Zero of the eight NPE signals are present; none of the two "unclear" outcomes (correspondent recurrence, which is unevaluable on a one-link chain) is evidence of anything. Because the chain contains only the original assignment, the taxonomy directs "Insufficient data" rather than "Operating-company assertion" — but functionally this reflects a clean, never-divested corporate portfolio asset, not an unexamined record.

Two open verification items, both requiring the Assignment Center record itself: (a) the reel/frame for the 2000-03-28 recording, and (b) the correspondent of record on that frame. If Canon's in-house or outside prosecution counsel appears there, cross-checking that name against other Canon reel/frames would test correspondent recurrence — though on a one-link chain even a match would be weak evidence.

Verify at: USPTO Assignment Center — search 6785727 or application 09/470,207 — cross-checked against the Google Patents legal-events tab used above.

I'll research US Patent 6785727 and its cited prior art. Let me run several searches.

Let me get the specific front-page citations from the patent records.

Important scope and reliability caveats (please read first)

1. I could not reach the USPTO's own systems directly in this session. Tools available to me returned results from Google Patents, Justia, Unified Patents, and EPO/patentimages PDFs — not from USPTO Patent Public Search (ppubs.uspto.gov), PatentCenter, or the USPTO Assignment database. So I cannot certify this as a verbatim USPTO front-page citation list.
2. The cited-reference list below is reconstructed from the Unified Patents portal entry for US‑6785727‑B1 (https://portal.unifiedpatents.com/patents/patent/US-6785727-B1), which reproduces a "Patent Citations / Non-Patent Literature (0) / Referenced By (172)" structure. It is likely incomplete (foreign documents and examiner citations may be missing), and the dates shown there may be filing/priority dates rather than publication dates.
3. Interpretation rule honored: I treated the number literally as 6785727 / US6785727B1 and did not substitute any similar number.
4. § 102 mapping is necessarily conditional. I verified only a subset of the claim set verbatim (claims 15, 16, 29–41 via https://patents.justia.com/patent/6785727). Claims 2–14, 17–28, and 42+ were not retrieved in full. Where I cannot verify a claim's text, I say so rather than assign a claim number.

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1. Bibliographic verification for US 6785727

Sources: https://patents.google.com/patent/US6785727/en ; https://portal.unifiedpatents.com/patents/patent/US-6785727-B1

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2. Prior-art references cited for US 6785727

These are the references appearing in the "Patent Citations" block for the patent (i.e., art the examiner/ applicant cited against it). The "(172) Referenced By" items are later documents citing 6785727 and are not prior art, so I have excluded them.

U.S. patent documents

Foreign patent document (expressly discussed in the patent's Background)

The specification's Background frames JP‑A‑8‑335147 as the starting point and identifies its deficiencies as: (a) it reserves jobs, not a time zone, so a printer cannot be reserved when no job exists yet; and (b) it always accepts jobs in parallel, so a machine cannot be dedicated to one user for a given time zone. These deficiencies are precisely the problem US 6785727 claims to solve.

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3. Most relevant prior art and potential § 102 analysis

Claim architecture (as far as I could verify): independent claims appear to be claim 1 (image processor apparatus: first setting means for reserving a job-processing time zone; second setting means for setting a job control method in the reserved time zone; job control means for preferentially processing the reserver's job), claim 15 (control method), claim 29 (memory medium storing a control program), and claim 41 (computer-readable memory medium storing a program for the information-processor/host side). Dependent claims 16 (exception/dividing modes), 33 (processing-time estimation), 35 (warm-up from power-save), 36 (resource securing/cancel), 37 (sending resource settings with job), and 38 (updating settings) are confirmed from the Justia text.

A. US 6,125,249 A — Minolta, "Image processing unit having reserve function"

• Most relevant reference. It is the one citation that discloses an image-processing unit with a reserve function — the core concept of claim 1's "first setting means for reserving."
• Potential § 102(a)/102(e) anticipation: strongest candidate against the reservation aspect of claim 1 and against any dependent claim limited to "reserving an image processor." However, on the disclosure identified, it does not appear to disclose the two limitations the patent characterizes as novel: (i) reserving a time zone even when no job has been generated, and (ii) preferentially processing a reserver's job over other users within that time zone. Expect a § 102 rejection on the broader claims and a § 103 combination for claims requiring the time-zone/preference features.

B. US 5,535,009 A — Eastman Kodak, "Copier/printer operating with interrupts"

• Discloses interrupt handling so a higher-priority job can be processed ahead of an in-progress job.
• Potential § 102 anticipation: maps to claim elements of "job control means… for processing a job preferentially" and to the confirmed dependent method claim reciting that "in the reserved time zone, said job control step suspends an unreserved job currently being processed and causes a reserved job to be processed as an interrupt process." That suspend/interrupt concept is squarely what US 5,535,009 describes — so this is the reference to watch for the interrupt-type dependent claims. It does not teach time-zone reservation, so it cannot anticipate claims 1/15/29 as a whole.

C. US 6,421,135 B1 — walk-up copier user interrupt at a job boundary

• Serious date problem for § 102 purposes. The listing shows a 1999‑03‑07 date, which is after 6785727's 1998‑12‑24 priority date but before its 1999‑12‑22 filing date. If 6785727 is entitled to its 1998‑12‑24 priority, US 6,421,135 is not § 102(a) or § 102(b) prior art; at most it could be § 102(e) art only if the underlying application predates the priority date (it does not, on the date shown). It would therefore be non-anticipatory and, if used at all, usable only as background/obviousness context. This date must be verified against the official records.

D. US 5,754,744 A — Sharp, "Printing control apparatus"

• Printing control apparatus managing jobs. Plausible § 102 basis for generic "job control means" elements, but does not disclose reserving a time zone or a reserver-priority scheme. Likely § 103 combination material only.

E. US 5,970,218 A — "Private print"

• Restricting a print job to a specific/authorized user. This maps to the confirmed claim language reciting judging "whether the job belongs to a reserver reserving the time zone" via "user name" and "password" (from the specification's FIG. 3 flow, Step S 305) and to dependent claims on non-reserver job rejection. Strong § 102/§ 103 support for the user-identification / rejection dependent claims, not for the independent time-zone reservation claim.

F. US 6,348,972 B1 — Toshiba, "Network print system for allowing a printer or printers to select a host"

• Networked print-job distribution/selection. Relevant background for the claimed "bidirectional interface / network" environment (claim 1 and the related-network dependent claims), but not anticipatory of the reservation-time-zone subject matter.

G. US 5,940,582 A — "Data printing system and method, and a controller and printer therefore"

• Printing system with controller/printer architecture. General-level relevance; primarily § 103 background. (The date "1990‑07‑24" in the aggregator listing looks anomalous and should be verified.)

H. JP‑A‑8‑335147 — reserving print jobs and setting priority

• The single most pertinent reference identified by the patentee itself. Because the specification concedes that JP‑A‑8‑335147 "discloses a method for reserving print jobs and setting the priority of the jobs," it is the best § 102 candidate against any claim that does not require a time-zone reservation independent of a job. The patent distinguishes it on exactly that point ("it is impossible to reserve a printer when no job is generated"). Consequently, JP‑A‑8‑335147 is materially relevant but, as characterized in the specification, is overcome by the time-zone-reservation limitation; combined with US 6,125,249 or US 5,535,009 it becomes the classic § 103 combination.

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4. Summary judgment

• Closest/most relevant prior art: US 6,125,249 A (Minolta — reserve function) and JP‑A‑8‑335147 (reserve print jobs + priority) for the reservation concept; US 5,535,009 A (Kodak — interrupts) and US 6,421,135 B1 (walk-up interrupt at job boundary) for priority/interrupt handling; US 5,970,218 A ("Private print") for reserver-only access control.
• Highest risk of § 102 anticipation: US 6,125,249 A against the reservation aspect of claim 1 and its dependent claims; US 5,535,009 A against the interrupt/suspend dependent claims.
• Likely non-anticipatory: US 6,421,135 B1, on the date shown (post-priority for 6785727).
• What none of the cited art appears to disclose (the apparent point of novelty): reserving a future time zone by user even before any job exists, plus reserving/securing resources (sheet feed, memory) and warming the machine from power-save in advance — i.e., confirmed dependent claims 35 and 36.

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5. What I could not confirm (recommended verification steps)

1. Verbatim USPTO front-page citations. Retrieve the "References Cited" block at https://ppubs.uspto.gov (Patent Public Search, US6785727 → "Front Page") and https://patentcenter.uspto.gov/applications/09470207. My list is from a third‑party aggregator and is probably not exhaustive.
2. Exact publication vs. filing vs. priority dates for US 5,940,582 and US 6,421,135 in particular — the dates I have may be filing dates, which changes the § 102 analysis materially (especially for US 6,421,135, 1999‑03‑07).
3. Full claim text of claims 2–14, 17–28, and 42 onward, so that anticipation can be mapped claim‑by‑claim rather than at the independent‑claim level.
4. Whether any foreign search/examination reports (e.g., the JP counterpart of JP‑A‑8‑335147 or the EP family member) cite additional art for this family.

If you can provide the verbatim front‑page "References Cited" list (or the full claim set), I will re‑run the § 102 mapping claim‑by‑claim with exact claim numbers and element-by-element correspondence.

I'll start by researching the prior art referenced in this patent and the patent's own claim/prior-art record.

Let me retrieve the patent's actual claims and its complete front-page prior-art reference list.

Let me pull the full claim set and a few key prior-art references.

Obviousness Analysis — U.S. Patent No. 6,785,727 (Yamazaki / Canon, priority 1998‑12‑24, granted 2004‑08‑31)

0. Scope note and sourcing caveat

Two grounding caveats up front, per the operating rules:

1. The "full text" supplied in this task is truncated before the claims. It ends inside the "Detailed Description" (at the FIG. 2 hardware description). The claim language used below was reconstructed from the published claim listing at Justia (https://patents.justia.com/patent/6785727), which exposes representative claim text (claims 15, 31–33, 36–42, 43–52). Where I characterize a claim I could not read verbatim, I say so. A definitive §103 opinion should be run against the issued claim set from the front page of the patent, not this reconstruction.

2. The "Prior Art" material on the Google Patents page itself is thin. The specification expressly discusses only one reference — JP‑A‑8‑335147. Everything else is in the front‑page "References Cited" list, which I obtained from the Unified Patents family page (https://portal.unifiedpatents.com/patents/patent/US-6785727-B1). I have treated that list as the prior art of record. I cross‑checked the substantive disclosures of the most important of those references against their own patent pages.

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1. The claimed subject matter (as best determinable)

Claim 1 (as reported by Justia) is an apparatus claim directed to an image processor shared by a plurality of users, comprising:

• first setting means for reserving and setting a job‑processing time zone (a time window, not a specific job) for a reserver;
• second setting means for setting a job control mode in the reserved time zone; and
• job control means for processing the reserver's job preferentially to other users in the reserved time zone according to the first/second settings.

The dependent/parallel claims add:

• selection between a first control mode (reject other users' jobs) and a second control mode (preferentially process the reserver's job while also processing others');
• estimation of the processing time required for a job, and applying the reserved‑zone control to jobs that cannot be completed before the reserved time;
• suspending an unreserved job currently being processed and running the reserved job as an interrupt (claim 15);
• communicating to the reserver and to job generators that others' jobs will be processed / rejected / may be accepted (claims 31–32);
• reserving resources (sheets, memory) for the reserver and releasing remaining secured resources afterward (claim 36);
• sending resource/reservation settings "together with a job in such a form that print data may be obtained without analysis of the print data" (claim 37);
• updating reservation settings until the reserved time arrives (claim 38);
• setting via host system or via the operation panel (claims 39–40).

The functional heart of the invention is therefore a time‑window reservation + policy + enforcement scheme on a shared printer, plus pre‑securing consumables/memory for the reserver.

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2. Legal standard

The application was filed 1999‑12‑22 and claims a 1998‑12‑24 Japanese priority, so pre‑AIA 35 U.S.C. § 103(a) governs. The controlling framework is Graham v. John Deere Co., 383 U.S. 1 (1966), as refined by KSR Int'l Co. v. Teleflex Inc., 550 U.S. 398 (2007). KSR confirms that:

• a combination of familiar elements according to known methods is obvious when it does no more than yield predictable results;
• a "design incentive" or "market pressure" to solve a known problem supports obviousness;
• a finite number of identified, predictable solutions ("obvious to try") supports obviousness; and
• the analysis must consider the background knowledge, creativity and common sense of the PHOSITA. See also MPEP § 2143.

I use means‑plus‑function treatment for "first/second setting means" and "job control means": the corresponding structure disclosed is a general‑purpose CPU (12) + clock (21) + RAM (19) + bidirectional interface programmed to perform the recited functions. Under §103 the question is therefore whether those functions were obvious; if so, a claim to a processor programmed to perform them is obvious.

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3. The prior art of record

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4. The specification's own admissions — the most damaging "prior art"

The specification contains express admissions that materially narrow the gap to the claims:

• It admits that printers "recently planned" already "start printing at a designated time by designating a scheduled output time when designating the printing of a job" (Background). That is reservation of a future output time, admitted as known.
• It admits the problem the invention purportedly solves is the risk of "paper deficiency at the scheduled output time," i.e. the resource‑reservation aspect was a recognized, unsolved need — the classic KSR "design incentive."
• It treats user identification by user name / password (spec ¶ describing S305) and network submission over IEEE 1284.4 / LAN (¶ describing medium 22) as conventional environment, not as invention.
• It treats the number‑of‑sheets detection sensor (1016), multiple sheet cassettes (1008/2314/2315), and the intermediate tray (2320)/duplexer used to hold sheets as conventional hardware.

Under In re Merck and MPEP § 2129, an applicant's admission about the prior art can be used in a §103 rejection; these admissions do a great deal of the work here.

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5. The core combination

Combination A (primary): JP‑A‑8‑335147 + US 6,125,249

What each teaches.

• JP‑A‑8‑335147 supplies the shared‑printer reservation + priority concept: reserve jobs, set/change priority from the panel, execute in priority order.
• US 6,125,249 supplies the time dimension: reservations keyed to a print start time, a required‑time calculator, and a scheduler that assigns non‑overlapping time windows, plus interrupt‑and‑resume.

Why a PHOSITA would combine them. JP‑A‑8‑335147 solves "get my printing out quickly" but only for jobs that already exist — it has no mechanism to guarantee a job is finished by a deadline, and its priority scheme cannot protect a future time slot. Minolta '249 addresses precisely that timing/scheduling deficiency (it computes required times and allocates non‑overlapping future windows). Both are in the identical field (electronic image‑forming/copier‑printer job scheduling), and a POSITA facing the admitted need to "print‑out by a determined time" would look to the scheduling art for a time‑slot mechanism. Applying the JP reference's reservation/priority machinery to a time‑zone reservation (which the specification admits was already known via "scheduled output time") is a predictable combination of known elements yielding no more than the expected result (KSR).

This combination maps to claim 1: first setting means = the time‑zone reservation window (JP reserving means + '249 print‑start‑time/scheduler); second setting means = the job‑control/priority setting in the window (JP priority‑setting means); job control means = execution in priority order within the reserved window ('249 scheduler). The alternative reject vs. prefer modes are the two known, finite ways to treat lower‑priority jobs in an arbitration scheme, so their selection is an obvious design choice.

Combination B: US 6,125,249 + US 5,535,009 (+ US 6,421,135)

This combination is aimed at the "suspend the unreserved job and run the reserved job as an interrupt" limitation (claim 15) and the preferential‑handling core.

• Minolta '249 already discloses interrupting an in‑progress print job, preserving its data, running a reserved job, and resuming the interrupted job — i.e., the interruption/ suspend‑and‑resume concept.
• Kodak '009 discloses a hierarchy in which one job class (copy) interrupts another (print) and interrupts are processed ahead of normal jobs (LIFO). This teaches that classes of users/jobs legitimately receive different priority and may preempt in‑progress work.
• Xerox '135 teaches the very real‑world case of a walk‑up (local) user's job preempting an on‑going network print job at a job/page boundary, with the network job continuing to be accepted and spooled.

Motivation. A shared printer necessarily arbitrates among competing jobs; giving a designated user precedence — including preemption — is the conventional purpose of interrupt scheduling (Kodak) and of walk‑up precedence (Xerox). Combining '249's time‑based reserved‑job interrupt with '009/'135's job‑class preemption yields exactly the claimed "suspend the unreserved job and run the reserved job as an interrupt," with a reasonable expectation that a reserved‑time window will be honored. The specification's "dividing a job into pieces that fit" feature (FIGS. 19/21) is also suggested by Xerox '135's boundary handling.

Combination C: (A or B) + US 5,982,994 / US 6,348,972 + US 5,970,218

• US 5,982,994 / 6,348,972 provide the networked, multi‑host shared image processor environment, removing any argument that "shared by a plurality of users" or "communicating the result to a generating host over the bidirectional interface/server" is inventive.
• US 5,970,218 ("Private print") provides the central device for distinguishing the privileged party: a job associated with an identified user and held/enabled based on that identity. This maps directly onto the "reserver"/"user name and password" identification the specification describes for deciding whose job is preferred in the reserved zone.

Motivation. In a shared‑printer network, applying the user‑identification mechanism ('218) to the "reserver" of the time‑window (Combination A/B) is the natural way to determine who owns the reservation; the references are combinable because they address the same problem (controlling access to a shared printer by identified users).

Combination D: (A–C) + sheet/memory resource reservation (claim 36 et seq.)

This is the single strongest obviousness posture, because the specification itself frames the problem:

"a resource necessary for printing is not reserved. Therefore, an error of paper deficiency may occur at the scheduled output time and thus, secure printing‑out is not assured at a reserved time."

Given (i) the admitted need, (ii) the admitted number‑of‑sheets detection sensor 1016, (iii) the admitted multiple cassettes and intermediate tray/duplexer usable to hold sheets, and (iv) routine consumables management in printer controllers, reserving a counted quantity of a given sheet size for the scheduled job, and releasing it after the window is a predictable use of known components to solve a stated problem — a textbook KSR "design incentive" case. The claim‑37 variant (sending the reservation with the job) is likewise just a data‑format convenience.

Combination E: communication/notification claims (31–33)

Notifying a reserver that the window has begun, and notifying a job generator that its job was accepted/rejected/will be processed, is conventional printer status reporting; the specification itself relies on IEEE‑1284.4 multichannel status monitoring and status monitors as known. No non‑obvious technical contribution is apparent.

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6. KSR rationales to invoke

For each combination above, one or more of the following KSR rationales applies:

1. Combination of familiar elements yielding predictable results — time‑window scheduling + job priority + interrupt handling + consumables reservation.
2. Design incentive / known problem — the expressly admitted "print by a determined time" and "paper deficiency at the scheduled output time" problems.
3. Obvious to try — only a finite number (essentially two) of ways to treat others' jobs in a reservation (block vs. prefer), and a small finite set of places to reserve resources (sheets, memory).
4. Known work in one field applied to an analogous field — meeting‑room / shared‑resource time reservation, and the admitted "scheduled output time" printers.

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7. Counterarguments and residual weaknesses (where the patent might survive)

A rigorous analysis must flag the claim(s) that are not cleanly met:

• "Reserve the machine even if no job is generated." JP‑A‑8‑335147 reserves jobs; Minolta '249 computes required time from an existing original/job before scheduling. Neither squarely discloses declaring a user's future time window before any job exists. This is the patent's stated first object and its best non‑obviousness argument. It is rebuttable (time‑window reservation of shared resources is ubiquitous; the admitted "scheduled output time" printers; Minolta's scheduler is already window‑oriented), but it is the point to litigate.
• Selectable reject‑vs‑prefer mode with communication to both parties (claims 31–33): a combination may need a fairly aggressive motivation to add cross‑party messaging.
• Resource pre‑securing with sensor‑based shortage detection and later release (claim 36): while KSR strongly favors obviousness here, one could argue no single reference discloses pre‑reserving paper ahead of a window; the rejection should therefore pair the printer‑resource management references explicitly rather than rely on "common sense" alone.
• Secondary considerations: none is asserted in the excerpt (no unexpected results, no nexus evidence). Any commercial‑success argument would need to show the success is attributable to the reservation feature rather than to Canon's printer business generally (no nexus). This weakens any rebuttal.

Also note some independent claims are drafted as method (15), memory medium (29–42) and program product (43–52) claims; because they recite the same functional steps, the same obviousness combinations dispose of them.

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8. Bottom line

On the record available, the claims of U.S. 6,785,727 would have been prima facie obvious under pre‑AIA §103(a) over the following combinations:

1. JP‑A‑8‑335147 + US 6,125,249 — reservation/priority on a shared printer (JP) in combination with time‑window scheduling, required‑time estimation, non‑overlap scheduling, and interrupt‑and‑resume ('249): renders claim 1 and the estimation/interrupt/priority claims obvious.
2. (1) + US 5,535,009 and/or US 6,421,135 — job‑class priority and walk‑up preemption at a boundary: renders the "suspend unreserved job; run reserved job as an interrupt" and job‑division features obvious.
3. (1)/(2) + US 5,982,994 or US 6,348,972 + US 5,970,218 — networked multi‑user sharing plus user‑identified job control: renders the "shared by a plurality of users," "reserver" identification, and communication features obvious.
4. (1)–(3) + the admitted conventional sheet sensor (1016), cassettes, intermediate tray, and resource management — renders the resource‑reservation claims (esp. claim 36) obvious, because the specification itself supplies the problem, the components, and the motivation.

The principal issues for the examiner/defendant are evidentiary, not conceptual: (a) whether the pre‑job time‑window reservation ("reserve a printer before the data exists") is truly taught or merely an obvious scheduling extension, and (b) whether the pre‑securing of physical sheets for a scheduled window is supported by an explicit reference rather than by "common sense." Both are answerable, and KSR tilts strongly toward obviousness. The strongest single reference is US 6,125,249 (Minolta, "Image processing unit having reserve function"), which independently discloses time‑based reservation, required‑time computation, non‑overlapping scheduling, and interrupt‑and‑resume — i.e., most of the dependent‑claim subject matter.

Caveat restated: this analysis relies on a reconstructed claim set (the supplied "full text" omits the issued claims) and on the front‑page reference list from a third‑party aggregator. Before filing a §103 rejection or invalidity contention, verify the issued claim language, the exact §102(b)/§102(e) dates of each reference, and the actual translations/teachings of JP‑A‑8‑335147.