Material or article handling – Apparatus for moving intersupporting articles into – within,... – Stack forming apparatus
Reexamination Certificate
1998-08-25
2001-02-20
Hess, Douglas (Department: 3652)
Material or article handling
Apparatus for moving intersupporting articles into, within,...
Stack forming apparatus
C414S789900, C271S207000
Reexamination Certificate
active
06190116
ABSTRACT:
BACKGROUND OF THE INVENTION
1. Field of the Invention
The present invention relates to a device for holding sheet mediums and an image forming apparatus, and more particularly to a sheet medium holding device incorporated in an image forming apparatus such as a copy machine, a facsimile machine, a printer.
2. Description of Related Art
Heretofore, a paper sheet holding device, which is one of a sheet medium holding mechanism, is provided with a sheet stack portion for holding thereon a stack of recorded sheets and an upper and lower side rollers located right before the sheet stack portion in order to feed the recorded sheets one by one onto the sheet stack portion. Those upper and lower side rollers being rotated at a predetermined speed discharge a recorded sheet toward a predetermined position of the sheet stack portion. The discharged sheet is stacked there.
However, when another discharge of a recorded sheet is made after a predetermined volume of the recorded sheets are stacked on the stack portion, the top end of the sheet subsequently discharged hits against the ends of the stacked sheets, causing buckle or slide of the sheet, thus resulting in an irregular stack of the sheets. The higher-level stacked sheets may collapse and are scattered from the stack portion. On the other hand, the sheet stacking portion is desired to hold recorded sheets as much as possible.
SUMMARY OF THE INVENTION
The present invention has been made in view of the above circumstances and has an object to overcome the above problems and to provide a sheet medium holding device which can holds sheet mediums in good order on a sheet stack portion and an image forming apparatus incorporating the sheet medium holding device.
Additional objects and advantages of the invention will be set forth in part in the description which follows and in part will be obvious from the description, or may be learned by practice of the invention. The objects and advantages of the invention may be realized and attained by means of the instrumentalities and combinations particularly pointed out in the appended claims.
To achieve the objects and in accordance with the purpose of the invention, according to a first embodiment of the present invention, there is provided a sheet medium holding device incorporated in an image forming apparatus provided with an image forming section, a sheet discharge portion for discharging a sheet medium on which an image is formed by the image forming section, and a sheet stack portion for sequentially stacking the sheet medium discharged through the sheet discharge portion on a predetermined area of the stack portion, the sheet medium holding device further including a sheet feeding device which is disposed in the sheet stack portion and shifts the stacked sheet mediums from the predetermined area to a position away from the sheet discharge portion at a point of time when the sheet mediums are stacked up to a predetermined amount on the predetermined area of the stack portion.
In the above sheet medium holding device, when the sheet medium discharged from the sheet discharge portion is sequentially stacked on a predetermined area of the sheet stack portion, the sheet feeding device slides a first stack of sheet mediums to a position away from the sheet discharge portion. When the discharge portion further discharges sheet mediums, this second stack of sheet mediums is arranged separately from or partially overlapped on the first stack without hitting against the upstream side end of the first stacked sheet mediums, preventing buckling and sliding of the second stacked sheet mediums.
According to a second embodiment of the present invention, there is provided a sheet medium holding device which holds sheet mediums on a predetermined area of a sheet stack portion, the sheet mediums being discharged from a sheet discharge portion to the sheet stack portion in an image forming apparatus, the sheet medium holding device further including a sheet feeding device which is disposed in the sheet stack portion and shifts the stacked sheet mediums from the predetermined area to a position away from the sheet discharge portion at a point of time when the sheet mediums are stacked up to a predetermined volume on the predetermined area of the stack portion.
According to a third embodiment of the present invention, there is provided an image forming apparatus including a body case, a sheet supply cassette removably attached to the body case, for holding a plurality of sheet mediums in a stacked state, an image forming section which forms an image on the sheet medium supplied from the supply cassette, a sheet discharge portion through which the sheet medium on which the image is formed by the image forming section is discharged to an outside of the body case, a sheet stack portion in which the sheet medium discharged through the sheet discharge portion is sequentially stacked, and a sheet feeding device which is disposed in the sheet stack portion and shifts the stacked sheet mediums from the predetermined area to a position away from the sheet discharge portion at a point of time when the sheet mediums are stacked up to a predetermined volume on the predetermined area of the stack portion.
REFERENCES:
patent: 2606669 (1952-08-01), Morrison
patent: 3683758 (1972-08-01), Feldkamper
patent: 3785256 (1974-01-01), Nikkel
patent: 3830144 (1974-08-01), Kuckhermann et al.
patent: 3880059 (1975-04-01), Brockmuller
patent: 4750853 (1988-06-01), Van Soest et al.
patent: 5342038 (1994-08-01), Suter
patent: 5462265 (1995-10-01), Mandel et al.
patent: 5545000 (1996-08-01), Gorsky
patent: 5569015 (1996-10-01), Gerlier
patent: 5829951 (1998-11-01), Adami
Brother Kogyo Kabushiki Kaisha
Hess Douglas
Oliff & Berridg,e PLC
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