Patents Examined by Patrick Mackey
  • Patent number: 9817357
    Abstract: A sheet processing apparatus that can suppress a reduction in a quality of a finish of a fold part of a stack of center-folded sheets without losing an ease of center-folding. The sheet processing apparatus comprises a creasing unit for forming a folding stripe on a sheet so as to facilitate folding the sheet, and an acquisition unit for acquiring information related to a thickness of the sheet. One or more sheets to be provided with folding stripes are determined, from among a plurality of sheets to be folded, according to the information related to the thickness of the sheets, and each of the determined one or more sheets are provided with a folding stripe.
    Type: Grant
    Filed: July 20, 2015
    Date of Patent: November 14, 2017
    Assignee: Canon Kabushiki Kaisha
    Inventors: Hitoshi Kato, Yasuo Fukatsu
  • Patent number: 9789728
    Abstract: A method for supplying and inserting document sets into associated envelopes, in which the document sets are supplied to an insert station in a document material stream and the envelopes are supplied to the insert station in an envelope material stream, to allow mail pieces to be collated with high reliability. In the insert station, the document set supplied in each case is inserted into the relevant envelope supplied at the same time, wherein for each document set, the position thereof in the document sequence and an associated document identification code are determined, and for each envelope, the position thereof in the envelope sequence and an associated envelope identification code are determined, and a document set and an envelope are supplied to the insert station only as a pair when it is confirmed that the envelope pending supply is individually associated with the document set pending supply.
    Type: Grant
    Filed: August 27, 2014
    Date of Patent: October 17, 2017
    Assignee: Winkler + Dünnebier GmbH
    Inventors: Reinhard Glade, Gerd Mattern, Andreas Völz
  • Patent number: 9782954
    Abstract: The invention relates to a method for assembling a stack (10) consisting of single or multilayered pre-products (1115) of equal or different sizes, said pre-products lying freely one on top of the other, wherein the stack (10) has two outer pre-products (11, 15). According to the method, the stack (10) is given a cohesion that facilitates later handling. The cohesion is achieved in a very simple and flexibly applicable manner by providing the slack (10) to be assembled in a first step, said stack consisting of pre-products (11-15) that lie freely one on top of the other, and by attaching at least one connecting element (17) to an edge (16) of the stack (10) in a second step such that said element overlaps the two outer pre-products (11, 15) of the stack (10) in a clamping manner.
    Type: Grant
    Filed: September 9, 2016
    Date of Patent: October 10, 2017
    Assignee: FERAG AG
    Inventor: Werner Honegger
  • Patent number: 9785104
    Abstract: A printing system includes a control unit configured to control an image forming unit to form an image on a sheet based on print setting information included in received job setting information, control a post-processing unit to execute a post-process corresponding to a designated type, and control a creasing unit.
    Type: Grant
    Filed: February 8, 2017
    Date of Patent: October 10, 2017
    Assignee: Canon Kabushiki Kaisha
    Inventor: Munetaka Sakata
  • Patent number: 9770391
    Abstract: Devices dispense medicine and dietary supplements in solid dosage form. The dimensions of the selection slots for the solid dosage forms in a device can be customized in depth by adding or subtracting spacers, and in width by adding or subtracting thickness inserts, or otherwise by employing components of suitable dimensions. Also, structures and methods for resolving jams of solid dosage forms are disclosed.
    Type: Grant
    Filed: December 5, 2016
    Date of Patent: September 26, 2017
    Assignee: PharmRight Corporation
    Inventor: William C Park, IV
  • Patent number: 9764920
    Abstract: A sheet processing apparatus includes a binding unit including a first portion and a second portion and configured to nip a sheet bundle between the first portion and the second portion to deform the sheet bundle in a thickness direction to bind the sheet bundle, and a detachment unit configured to push the bound sheet bundle toward the second portion to detach the bound sheet bundle from the first portion.
    Type: Grant
    Filed: May 29, 2014
    Date of Patent: September 19, 2017
    Assignee: Canon Kabushiki Kaisha
    Inventors: Hideto Abe, Rikiya Takemasa
  • Patent number: 9757971
    Abstract: An adhesive application device that applies an adhesive onto each of sequentially conveyed paper sheets, includes: a device frame; a bonding member that delivers the adhesive for bonding the paper sheets to each other; a plurality of bonding units that is arranged in a sheet width direction and each has the bonding member; a support member that supports the bonding units on the device frame so as to be movable between a bonding position at which each bonding unit presses its bonding member to apply the adhesive onto the paper sheet and a separated position separated from the bonding position; and a moving member that moves the plurality of bonding units to the bonding position with timing shifted. Thus, it is possible to move the bonding units with a smaller drive force than in a case where the bonding units are moved simultaneously.
    Type: Grant
    Filed: December 15, 2014
    Date of Patent: September 12, 2017
    Assignee: CANON FINETECH NISCA INC.
    Inventors: Hisashi Osada, Akira Takei, Eiji Fukasawa
  • Patent number: 9751711
    Abstract: An aligning unit stores a paper bundle that is formed by inserting a medium that is different from printed body text paper sheets conveyed from a printer into the printed body text paper sheets. A manual paper feeding unit stores a medium that is manually fed. A conveyance control unit makes the medium be conveyed from the manual paper feeding unit to the aligning unit after the body text paper sheets that include a page specified by a print job are stored in the aligning unit and before the body text paper sheet conveyed from the printer immediately afterwards is stored in the aligning unit.
    Type: Grant
    Filed: June 24, 2015
    Date of Patent: September 5, 2017
    Assignee: RISO KAGAKU CORPORATION
    Inventor: Hideaki Ogawa
  • Patent number: 9751210
    Abstract: The present invention provides a mobile robot configured to navigate an operating environment, that includes a machine vision system comprising a camera that captures images of the operating environment using a machine vision system; detects the presence of an occlusion obstructing a portion of the field of view of a camera based on the captured images, and generate a notification when an occlusion obstructing the portion of the field of view of the camera is detected, and maintain occlusion detection data describing occluded and unobstructed portions of images being used by the SLAM application.
    Type: Grant
    Filed: September 16, 2015
    Date of Patent: September 5, 2017
    Assignee: iRobot Corporation
    Inventors: Philip Fong, Jason Meltzer, Marc Barnada Rius
  • Patent number: 9747741
    Abstract: Presently disclosed embodiments are directed to systems and methods for bundling smaller stacks of bank notes into larger sized bundles that are efficient for transportation. The system may include an in-line bundler disposed along pockets of a currency processor for receiving stacks of bank notes directly from the pocket. That way, the smaller stacks of bank notes do not have to be removed from the currency processor and transported to a separate bundler machine. Instead, the currency processor features a desired number of bundler machines disposed in-line with the corresponding pockets where the bank notes are initially received and stacked. This arrangement may enable efficient stacking and bundling of bank notes sorted via the currency processor.
    Type: Grant
    Filed: March 18, 2015
    Date of Patent: August 29, 2017
    Assignee: Toshiba International Corporation
    Inventor: Jun Sheng
  • Patent number: 9731536
    Abstract: A sheet folding apparatus includes a retract path that is positioned on the upstream side of a stacker section for collecting sheets and that branches off from a transport path to enable a sheet carried in the stacker section to be transported in a direction opposite to a carry-in direction, an adhesion unit that is positioned in a junction position of the transport path and the retract path to bond sheets by applying an adhesive, a staple binding unit that binds sheets collected in the stacker section with a staple, and a folding processing section that folds sheets bound with the unit. The retract path is a path for retracting an application position of the preceding sheet with the adhesive applied, in carrying a next sheet in the stacker section, and the staple binding unit is disposed in the stacker section between the adhesion unit and the folding processing section.
    Type: Grant
    Filed: September 10, 2015
    Date of Patent: August 15, 2017
    Assignee: NISCA CORPORATION
    Inventors: Hisashi Osada, Takashi Saito, Isao Kondo
  • Patent number: 9725276
    Abstract: A sheet processing device is for binding sheets together. The sheet processing device includes binding units differing from each other in maximum sheet count, the maximum sheet count being a maximum number of sheets that can be bound at a time; a sheet tray configured to hold sheets until all to-be-bound sheets are placed therein, the number of the to-be-bound sheets being a largest one of the maximum sheet counts of the binding units or smaller; and a stacked-sheet-count limiting unit situated in a thickness direction of the sheets held in the sheet tray. The stacked-sheet-count limiting unit is configured to limit the number of sheets held in the sheet tray by varying a distance from a sheet support surface of the sheet tray on which the sheets are placed, depending on one of the binding units by which the sheets held in the sheet tray are to be bound.
    Type: Grant
    Filed: June 1, 2015
    Date of Patent: August 8, 2017
    Assignee: RICOH COMPANY, LIMITED
    Inventors: Wataru Takahashi, Katsuhiro Kosuge, Nobuyoshi Suzuki, Hidehiko Fujiwara, Yuusuke Shibasaki, Koki Sakano, Takuya Morinaga
  • Patent number: 9724954
    Abstract: A sheet pasting and binding apparatus has a paste application unit, an acquisition unit, a detection unit, and a controller. The paste application unit can change an application amount for applying paste to fed sheets. The acquisition unit acquires the number of printing instructed sheets. The detection unit detects the remaining amount of the paste. The controller controls the paste application unit so that pasting and binding are performed using a second paste application amount which is smaller than a first paste application amount while the pasting and binding are performed using the first paste application amount which is specified in advance as the paste application amount for maintaining a binding force between the sheets, based on the reception number and the remaining paste amount.
    Type: Grant
    Filed: March 27, 2015
    Date of Patent: August 8, 2017
    Assignees: KABUSHIKI KAISHA TOSHIBA, TOSHIBA TEC KABUSHIKI KAISHA
    Inventor: Hiroyuki Taguchi
  • Patent number: 9714150
    Abstract: A sheet conveying apparatus that restricts conveyance of sheets to a post-processing apparatus which has become incapable of continuing a post-processing operation. The sheet conveying apparatus is communicably connected to the post-processing apparatus that performs post-processing on a sheet bundle formed by sheets. The sheet conveying apparatus includes a conveying unit for conveying sheets and an escape tray for receiving conveyed sheets which are not conveyed to the post-processing apparatus. A value corresponding to the number of sheet bundles formed by conveyed sheets is counted. A CPU circuit section determines based on communication with the post-processing apparatus whether or not the post-processing operation can be continued thereby. When it is determined that the post-processing operation cannot be continued, the CPU circuit section switches the sheet conveying destination from the post-processing apparatus to the escape tray, based on the counted value.
    Type: Grant
    Filed: April 22, 2015
    Date of Patent: July 25, 2017
    Assignee: CANON KABUSHIKI KAISHA
    Inventors: Toshiyuki Miyake, Akinobu Nishikata, Satoru Yamamoto, Takashi Yokoya, Katsuya Nakama, Koji Yumoto, Riki Fukuhara
  • Patent number: 9688502
    Abstract: A sheet processing apparatus that forms a folding line on a sheet includes first and second folding rollers that form a folding line on the sheet by rotating a bent sheet while pinching from sheet surfaces and a first pressing unit that presses the second folding roller against the first folding roller in an arbitrary portion in a rotating shaft direction of the second folding roller.
    Type: Grant
    Filed: May 7, 2015
    Date of Patent: June 27, 2017
    Assignee: RICOH COMPANY, LIMITED
    Inventors: Ken Sawada, Shigeru Mizuno, Hiroyuki Kuno, Takuya Fukuhara
  • Patent number: 9682840
    Abstract: A folding roller for use in a folding device for folding a fold is disclosed. At the folding device a substrate to be folded is pushed into an inlet roller nip of folding rollers rotating in opposite directions by a folding knife for forming a fold. The folded-away substrate is transferred from the folding rollers to a belt line guided about the folding rollers and consisting of transport belts for the purpose of onward transporting the folded product. The folding roller in the regions in axial extension in which at least one transport belt at least partially wraps the folding roller includes at least one rubber-elastic insert.
    Type: Grant
    Filed: May 22, 2015
    Date of Patent: June 20, 2017
    Assignee: manroland web systems GmbH
    Inventor: Siegmund Echerer
  • Patent number: 9682841
    Abstract: Disclosed is a sheet folding apparatus which performs a first folding and a second folding on one or a plurality of sheets including a first roller which is one of rollers that form a first nip which performs the first folding, a second roller which forms the first nip with the first roller, a third roller which forms a second nip with the second roller which performs the second folding, a roller drive unit which operates the first, second and third rollers, a first pushing member which pushes a sheet in the first nip, a first push drive unit which operates the first pushing member, a second pushing member which pushes the sheet in the second nip, a second push drive unit which operates the second pushing member, and a control unit which controls the roller driver unit, the first push drive unit and the second push drive unit.
    Type: Grant
    Filed: August 29, 2014
    Date of Patent: June 20, 2017
    Assignee: KONICA MINOLTA, INC.
    Inventor: Akira Tsunoda
  • Patent number: 9669644
    Abstract: In accordance with one embodiment, a sheet binding apparatus comprises a pasting section and a control section. The pasting section is capable of selectively carrying out pasting processing on at least one of a plurality of different given pasting target areas on sheets to be pasted. The control section controls the execution of the pasting processing based on the pasting section so that pasting target areas of a first sheet and a second sheet other than the first sheet within a plurality of sheets to be subjected to binding processing are different.
    Type: Grant
    Filed: August 21, 2014
    Date of Patent: June 6, 2017
    Assignees: KABUSHIKI KAISHA TOSHIBA, TOSHIBA TEC KABUSHIKI KAISHA
    Inventors: Hiroyuki Taguchi, Shoichi Dobashi, Yasunobu Terao, Mikio Yamamoto, Jun Ishii
  • Patent number: 9665056
    Abstract: A staple processing device includes a staple tray, a staple unit, a rear reference plate, a front reference plate, and an interlocking mechanism. The staple unit performs a staple process on a plurality of sheets loaded on the staple tray. The staple unit is movable along the ends of the sheets in a sheet width direction. The rear reference plate and the front reference plate abut the ends of the plurality of sheets and aligns the plurality of sheets. The interlocking mechanism moves the rear reference plate and the front reference plate in the sheet width direction in interlock with the movement of the staple unit.
    Type: Grant
    Filed: May 19, 2015
    Date of Patent: May 30, 2017
    Assignee: KYOCERA DOCUMENT SOLUTIONS INC.
    Inventors: Seiichi Shirasaki, Takeshi Matsuo
  • Patent number: 9643813
    Abstract: A paper folding apparatus includes: a pair of folding rollers driven in a rotational manner; a carrying roller configured to carry paper in such a manner that the paper passes near a nip part of the pair of folding rollers; a unit configured to form, near the nip part, deflection of the paper carried by the carrying roller toward the nip part; a pushing member which is configured to push the paper, which is carried by the carrying roller, toward the nip part of the folding rollers, the pushing member being provided in a manner movable from a position retracted from a carrying path of the paper toward the nip part; a drive unit configured to generate driving force to move the pushing member; and an elastic member configured to transmit the driving force from the drive unit to the pushing member.
    Type: Grant
    Filed: January 29, 2015
    Date of Patent: May 9, 2017
    Assignee: KONICA MINOLTA, INC.
    Inventors: Isamu Kugimiya, Masato Niizuma, Yusuke Hirano, Kunihiko Kanou