Patents Examined by Gerald W McClain
  • Patent number: 7726646
    Abstract: A sheet in accordance with the present invention includes sheets as print mediums for a printer and a package member surrounding the sheets which have been stacked up. The sheet package is configured so that the sheets can be set in the printer together with the package member exposing part of the sheets. The package member is integrally provided with a flap part which can expose part of the sheets by being opened when the sheet package is set in the printer and cover the exposed part of the sheets by being closed when the sheet package is not used.
    Type: Grant
    Filed: March 17, 2003
    Date of Patent: June 1, 2010
    Assignee: Brother Kogyo Kabushiki Kaisha
    Inventors: Koji Sugiyama, Hiroshi Taira, Minoru Yamamoto, Keiji Seo, Takashi Okumura, Katsuhiko Shimada, Mutsuo Naoe
  • Patent number: 7722026
    Abstract: A sheet conveyer device to convey a sheet in a conveyer path, including a first roller pair arranged in an intermediate position in the conveyer path, a feeder to feed the sheet toward the first roller pair during a feeding operation, a discharge portion, on which the sheet is discharged, a second roller pair arranged in the conveyer path in a position closer to the discharge portion than the first roller pair, a control unit to control the first and the second roller pairs to rotate synchronously, and a judging system to judge whether a sheet feeding error has occurred in the feeder, is provided. The control unit controls the first and the second roller pairs to rotate synchronously in a second direction during the feeding operation and in a first direction when the judging system judges that the sheet feeding error has occurred during the feeding operation.
    Type: Grant
    Filed: April 8, 2009
    Date of Patent: May 25, 2010
    Assignee: Brother Kogyo Kabushiki Kaisha
    Inventors: Kensuke Hirate, Shunsuke Mizutani
  • Patent number: 7717417
    Abstract: The present application is directed to devices and methods for moving media sheets in an image forming device. In one embodiment, a contact member includes a contact roller that contacts a top-most media sheet in a stack of media sheets positioned on a support surface in an input area of the image forming device. A hub extends outward from an axial side of the contact roller. The hub includes a smaller length than the contact roller, forming a gap between the hub and the top-most media sheet when the contact roller is in contact with the top-most media sheet. The hub prevents or reduces transverse buckling of the top-most media sheet when it is moved from the stack of media sheets.
    Type: Grant
    Filed: June 20, 2007
    Date of Patent: May 18, 2010
    Assignee: Lexmark International, Inc.
    Inventor: Niko Jay Murrell
  • Patent number: 7717420
    Abstract: An apparatus for feeding sheets in sheet-processing machines includes a transport belt which transports sheets from a first location to a second location. The transport belt can be driven at variable speed by a drive. The speed of the transport belt can be controlled by a control device in such a way that, through the use of a combination of at least two speed profiles, the number of sheets on the transport belt and the transfer of the sheets at the first and second locations can be adjusted. A printing press having the apparatus is also provided.
    Type: Grant
    Filed: March 24, 2008
    Date of Patent: May 18, 2010
    Assignee: Heidelberger Druckmaschinen AG
    Inventors: Jochen Bechtler, Oliver Nowarra
  • Patent number: 7712736
    Abstract: A printer apparatus includes a paper cater plate portion for carrying paper on which an image is printed, a prescribed shaft portion arranged above the paper carrier plate portion, a paper feed roller for feeding the paper provided on the shaft portion, a pushing member for pushing the paper carrier plate portion toward the paper feed roller, a cam provided on the shaft portion, and a cam abutment portion provided in the paper cater plate portion and abutting on the earn. The cam is formed from a resin and includes a cut-out portion so that a portion of the cam abutting on the cam abutment portion when the paper cater plate portion is lifted is elastic.
    Type: Grant
    Filed: July 5, 2005
    Date of Patent: May 11, 2010
    Assignee: Funai Electric Co., Ltd.
    Inventor: Kiyoshi Chinzei
  • Patent number: 7708268
    Abstract: A pile of sheets is held by a separator/feeder and a vibrator is brought into contact with a first region of the pile with a first contact pressure. High frequency vibrations are applied from the vibrator to the sheet. A takeout mechanism is brought into contact with and pressed against the pile with a second contact pressure and sheets are taken out one by one from the top surface of the pile by the takeout mechanism. A first sensor detects the position of the vibrator and outputs a first detection signal, while a second sensor detects the uppermost surface of the pile and outputs a second detection signal. A control section selects first and second contact pressures according to the first and second detection signals and maintains the first and second contact pressures.
    Type: Grant
    Filed: May 22, 2007
    Date of Patent: May 4, 2010
    Assignee: Kabushiki Kaisha Toshiba
    Inventors: Kiminori Toya, Hideki Nukada, Yuko Kobayashi
  • Patent number: 7703764
    Abstract: A document feeding device includes a document placing tray, a document ejection tray disposed above the document placing tray, a feeding path, a first reversal path, a second reversal path, and a reversing mechanism. The document ejection tray has a flap portion capable of rocking up and down to provide a first ejection mode and a second ejection mode. The reversing mechanism is configured to temporarily eject part of a document to the document ejection tray.
    Type: Grant
    Filed: March 23, 2009
    Date of Patent: April 27, 2010
    Assignee: Brother Kogyo Kabushiki Kaisha
    Inventor: Takuro Kusama
  • Patent number: 7703765
    Abstract: Embodiments herein include a printing or copying device that includes a media transport belt and a vacuum manifold. The vacuum manifold has an air intake positioned adjacent the media transport belt and has a vacuum blower or other air moving device that forces air out an air outlet of the manifold. The vacuum blower forces air from the vacuum manifold through the air outlet to create vacuum within the manifold. The vacuum manifold also includes transport belt openings that are sized, shaped, and positioned to allow the transport belt to pass into the vacuum manifold. The media transport belt is positioned partially within, and partially outside the vacuum manifold, such that the media transport belt is positioned to move through (within) the vacuum manifold from a first transport belt opening to a second transport belt opening.
    Type: Grant
    Filed: August 4, 2006
    Date of Patent: April 27, 2010
    Assignee: Xerox Corporation
    Inventor: Robert Charles Standing
  • Patent number: 7699308
    Abstract: An apparatus for diverting sheet material, in particular bank notes (BN), includes a diverting plate (4) with a first diverting edge (7) disposed on a slant and preferably a second diverting edge (8) disposed on a slant. The sheet material is guided and transported from the rear side (6) of the diverting plate (4) around the first diverting edge (7) to the front side (5) and further around the second diverting edge (8) back to the rear side (6). If the diverting edges (7, 8) are aligned relative to the transport direction (1, 2, 3) of the sheet material e.g. in each case at a slant angle of 45°, this apparatus permits the sheet-material transport direction to be diverted by 180°, whereby the transport path is shifted parallel. Thus, a continuous bank-note stream can be diverted uninterruptedly while retaining the sheet-material orientation relative to the transport direction.
    Type: Grant
    Filed: January 9, 2007
    Date of Patent: April 20, 2010
    Assignee: Giesecke & Devrient GmbH
    Inventors: August Häusler, Ralf Linck, Markus Sperl
  • Patent number: 7699307
    Abstract: A medium delivery apparatus, includes: a medium insertion portion; a medium delivery port; first and second medium guide surfaces; a feed roller; a first pressing member; a second pressing member; a rotating member; an urging member, configured to give an urging force acting in a first rotation direction to the rotating member to rotate the second pressing member toward the protruding position; an elastic member, configured to cause the second pressing member and the rotating member to abut against each other; and a stationary abutting portion, against which the rotating member abuts when the first pressing member is placed in the vicinity of the waiting position.
    Type: Grant
    Filed: February 3, 2009
    Date of Patent: April 20, 2010
    Assignee: Seiko Epson Corporation
    Inventor: Toshiyuki Sasaki
  • Patent number: 7694956
    Abstract: A recording apparatus has a paper feeder wherein single sheets of paper can be set, a paper delivery device for transporting paper fed from the paper feeder to a recorder, and a control unit for controlling operation of the paper feeder and the paper delivery device. The control unit has a skew removal execution mode of only the first sheet of paper where the paper tip is bitten into a paper delivery roller forming a part of the paper delivery device and then the paper delivery roller is reversely rotated for ejecting the paper tip for the first sheet of paper at the start of recording and then forward rotating the paper delivery roller for delivering the sheet of paper whose skew is removed to the recorder and delivering the second and later sheets of paper to a record area without executing the skew removal.
    Type: Grant
    Filed: May 14, 2007
    Date of Patent: April 13, 2010
    Assignee: Seiko Epson Corporation
    Inventors: Masaki Shimomura, Kazuhisa Kawakami, Tsuyoshi Yamanaka, Masafumi Furuyama, Toru Fukushima
  • Patent number: 7690644
    Abstract: A supply station for positioning enclosures on an enclosure-collating path of a mail-processing installation allows a simple conversion from operation for processing a stack of comparatively flexible, thin enclosures to operation for processing a stack of comparatively thick, essentially inflexible enclosures. The conversion is achieved using a magazine housing inside a supply station housing mounted so that it can be secured in two different pivot positions, whereby in one pivot position the lowermost enclosure of a stack of enclosures is bent using a vacuum arrangement in which the front end of the enclosure in the withdrawal direction can be gripped by a gripper, while in a second pivot position of the magazine housing, the front end in the withdrawal direction of a lowermost, comparatively thick and essentially inflexible enclosure is pushed by means of a pusher arrangement directly into the open claws of the gripper.
    Type: Grant
    Filed: October 8, 2004
    Date of Patent: April 6, 2010
    Assignee: Pitney Bowes Deutschland GmbH
    Inventors: Martin Sting, Christian Botschek, Rainer Oberheim
  • Patent number: 7686298
    Abstract: A method of removing media lateral DC position errors in a long paper path using closed loop correction is disclosed. The amount of lateral DC media shift error generated (or the lateral DC correction required) in the paper path is sensed by a CCD or full width array sensor located in the downstream paper path. In the closed loop, this information is used to energize a motorized actuator in the upstream paper path to correct for lateral DC errors in the media path. Thus, the paper is delivered to the downstream media path within specifications.
    Type: Grant
    Filed: November 5, 2007
    Date of Patent: March 30, 2010
    Assignee: Xerox Corporation
    Inventors: Alexander J. Fioravanti, Rakesh Suresh Kulkarni, Abu Islam, Keith Andrew Buddendeck, Saurabh Prabhat
  • Patent number: 7681877
    Abstract: An image forming device includes a paper supply apparatus including an adjustable knock-up plate to store a plurality of papers and having a lifter, a pick-up roller and feed roller to pick up each of the plurality of papers and feed each of the plurality of papers into the image forming device respectively, a motor to drive a plurality of units in the image forming device including the knock-up plate, and a brake unit to selectively transmit and disconnect power to the lifter. The lifting operation of the knock-up plate, to smoothly supply papers to the image forming device, is performed by receiving power from an existing arbitrary motor installed within the image forming device, and not from an exclusive motor that is solely used to drive and lift the knock-up plate.
    Type: Grant
    Filed: January 9, 2008
    Date of Patent: March 23, 2010
    Assignee: Samsung Electronics Co., Ltd.
    Inventor: Jung-yun Won
  • Patent number: 7677555
    Abstract: A sheet conveying apparatus includes a sheet containing unit that contains sheets; a sheet conveying unit that conveys the sheets; a separating unit that separates a single sheet from the sheets; a holding unit that holds the separating unit; and a vibration applying unit that applies a vibration to any one of the sheets conveyed by the sheet conveying unit and the separating unit before starting conveyance of the sheets.
    Type: Grant
    Filed: December 19, 2008
    Date of Patent: March 16, 2010
    Assignee: Ricoh Company, Limited
    Inventors: Mizuna Tanaka, Yasuo Matsuyama, Hiroshi Fujiwara, Tomoyoshi Yamazaki, Toshikane Nishii, Kazuyoshi Kondo, Yasuhide Ohkubo, Haruyuki Honda, Ippei Kimura, Masafumi Takahira
  • Patent number: 7677560
    Abstract: An apparatus for deflecting sheet material from a first transport direction to a second transport direction while maintaining the orientation of the sheet material comprises a deflecting area (5) with a sheet-material supply zone (5a) and a sheet-material removal zone (5b), as well as at least one slider (11) with slider elements (12), which engages on the trailing edge of the sheet material to be deflected. By moving the slider from the sheet-material supply zone to the sheet-material removal zone around a rotation axis (13) the sheet material is deflected by the desired deflection angle. The sheet-material transport path preferably has two steps and the rotation axis (13) of the sliders (11) is preferably arranged in such a fashion that the slider elements (12) substantially only engage with the sheet-material transport path in the deflecting area (5) and emerge from the sheet-material transport path both upstream of the sheet-material supply zone (5a) and downstream of the sheet-material removal zone (5b).
    Type: Grant
    Filed: August 7, 2006
    Date of Patent: March 16, 2010
    Assignee: Giesecke & Devrient GmbH
    Inventor: August Häusler
  • Patent number: 7677548
    Abstract: A cassette for mounting on an image forming apparatus body and supplying media to the apparatus body. The cassette includes a first tray, a second tray and a slide mechanism. The first tray and second tray are each able to contain multiple media. The slide mechanism allows the trays to be movable relative to each other. The first tray has an oblique surface and a first separation portion, and the second tray has an oblique surface and a second separation portion. Each of the oblique surfaces can separate an uppermost medium from other media such that distal ends of the media during delivery abut against the oblique surface. Each of the first and second separation portions guides the separated medium along the oblique surface in a paper feeding direction. The first separation portion has a different structure than the second separation portion provided for the second tray.
    Type: Grant
    Filed: May 23, 2008
    Date of Patent: March 16, 2010
    Assignee: Seiko Epson Corporation
    Inventor: Hiroki Chino
  • Patent number: 7673875
    Abstract: Based on the type of sheet and the detection result of double feed, carrying a sheet is stopped. Carrying of a predetermined type of sheet is not stopped even when double feed is detected. The predetermined type of sheet is a sheet having air space inside thereof (an envelope, an OHP sheet, Kent paper, or the like).
    Type: Grant
    Filed: December 12, 2006
    Date of Patent: March 9, 2010
    Assignee: Sharp Kabushiki Kaisha
    Inventors: Muneyuki Motohashi, Tsuyoshi Iwamoto
  • Patent number: 7673873
    Abstract: A tray for receiving printed media from a printer, the tray including a print well, a ramp and at least two side walls. There is at least one support member extending from the tray adapted to engage the printer and position the tray such that the print well is laterally offset from the exit slot of the printer and prints exiting from the printer overhang one of the side walls of the tray. A ledge feature projects from the side wall that exiting prints overhang, the ledge feature configured to bias movement of the printed media exiting the printer and in contact the ledge feature to fall into the print well.
    Type: Grant
    Filed: June 14, 2004
    Date of Patent: March 9, 2010
    Assignee: Eastman Kodak Company
    Inventors: Robert F. Mindler, Robert C. Cohoon, Theodore J. Skomsky
  • Patent number: 7665728
    Abstract: A document feeding device includes a document placing tray, a document ejection tray disposed above the document placing tray, a feeding path, a first reversal path, a second reversal path, and a reversing mechanism. The document ejection tray has a flap portion capable of rocking up and down to provide a first ejection mode and a second ejection mode. The reversing mechanism is configured to temporarily eject part of a document to a space portion between the document placing tray and the document ejection tray.
    Type: Grant
    Filed: March 24, 2009
    Date of Patent: February 23, 2010
    Assignee: Brother Kogyo Kabushiki Kaisha
    Inventor: Takuro Kusama