Sheet-material associating – Associating or disassociating – Sheet associating
Reexamination Certificate
1998-12-29
2001-04-10
Ellis, Christopher P. (Department: 3651)
Sheet-material associating
Associating or disassociating
Sheet associating
C270S052140, C270S052160, C270S052200, C270S052220, C270S058290, C271S184000, C271S225000, C271S205000, C271S206000, C271S294000
Reexamination Certificate
active
06213457
ABSTRACT:
BACKGROUND OF THE INVENTION
Field of the Invention
This invention relates broadly to the production of print media such as magazines, books, catalogues and the like, and more specifically to the production of different issues or groups of magazines within a total national subscription of a magazine.
For the purpose of this disclosure, reference will hereinafter be made to “magazine” or “magazines” with the understanding that the term is to be considered generic to magazines, books, catalogues and the like. In magazine publishing, there is an increasing desire by advertisers to direct their advertising at particular subscriber groups within a total national subscription of a magazine. To meet this demand the magazine publisher has to provide different issues of magazines containing different combinations of advertising for different subscriber groups which accordingly requires that the magazines of one total national subscription are to be made up of different combinations of signatures.
A typical magazine assembly system for solving this problem is for example disclosed in U.S. Pat. No. 3,819,173 which describes a method and an apparatus for producing magazines. The apparatus comprises an inserter having a plurality of pockets arranged aside a collating chain and adapted to contain different sets of signatures which are to be delivered to the collating chain. Each of the inserter pockets is provided with a feeder mechanism which may be selectively engaged or disengaged to enable or prevent the feeding of the signature from the associated pocket feed mechanism to the collating chains. This selective feeding of signatures from a plurality of hoppers makes it possible to produce different issues of magazines of one edition.
From U.S. Pat. No. 4,988,086, a collating apparatus for producing magazines is known. This document describes an apparatus for forming sheet material assemblages where a continuous path of sequentially arranged pockets travels beneath a plurality of piles of sheets, each pile being arranged in a bottomless hopper. Each of the pockets comprises a belt mechanism to extract one of the sheet materials from the piles when it passes beneath the pile and to feed it into the receiving pocket.
As the number of hoppers which can be arranged along the conveyor is limited due to the limited length of the conveyor, this heretofore known method and apparatus is considerably limited, however, in its ability to add any number of different signatures to the magazine.
U.S. Pat. No. 4,989,850 discloses a machine for collating signatures on a conveyor, where the individual magazines which are to be produced are provided with the name and address of the subscriber on the inside of a so called demographic signature. To deliver such a signature to a main conveyor it is suggested to provide the machine with a remote conveyor, a so-called raceway, which delivers individual and personalized signatures from a remote signature magazine to the main conveyor. The signatures are fed from the remote magazine to the raceway using an extracting cylinder comprising a pair of discs mounted on a common shaft. The signatures are identical in geometry and have the same preprinted text. During traveling on the raceway the signatures are personalized by an ink jet printer. Furthermore, it is possible to provide two pocket feeders for delivering different signatures onto the raceway depending on so-called demographic orders which refer to different interests of the reader, for example.
SUMMARY OF THE INVENTION
It is an object of the invention of the instant application to provide a new and improved apparatus for feeding sheet material such as signatures or sheets onto a conveyor such as a belt conveyor, especially for use in the production of magazines.
It is a further object of the invention to provide a new and improved apparatus for producing magazines having personalized or customized pages.
It is yet another object of the invention to provide a new and improved method of operating the apparatus.
According to one aspect of the invention, the apparatus for feeding a flat product from a pile of flat products to a receiving location on a conveyor includes a plurality of delivering units moving in a closed loop along a path extending at least partly beneath the pile for extracting a single flat product from the pile. Each of the delivering units has a first driven belt which is engageable with the pile and has a diverting element for diverting the flat product in a predetermined direction.
According to another aspect of the invention, there is provided an apparatus for forming sheet material assemblages having a main conveyor and receiving locations located on the main conveyor. A number of the remote sheet material magazines for holding piles of sheet material and a remote delivering unit for delivering sheet material from the remote sheet material magazines to the main conveyor is arranged. The remote delivering unit comprises a remote feeder conveyor having a plurality of receiving locations located thereon. A plurality of delivering units for moving one of the sheet material of one of the piles to one of the receiving locations of the remote feeder conveyor is arranged. The delivering units move independently from the remote feeder conveyor along a path in a closed loop. Each of the delivering units includes a first driven belt having an upper run sequentially engageable with each of the piles of sheet material. A driving unit moves each of the plurality of delivering units past each of the sheet material magazines, wherein each of the delivering units includes a sheet diverting element for diverting the sheet material in a predetermined direction in order to feed the sheet material to the receiving location on the remote feeder conveyor.
According to a further aspect of the invention, a method for feeding a flat product from a pile of flat products to a receiving location includes the steps of moving a plurality of delivering units past the pile, each of the delivering units including a belt and a diverting element. The method further comprises the steps of extracting a single flat product from the pile with one of the plurality of delivering units, diverting the flat product with a diverting unit of the delivering unit and feeding the flat product to the receiving location.
The provision of the diverting element for diverting a sheet material being fed from a pile of flat products to a receiving location, preferably on a conveyor, by one of the plurality of delivering units makes it possible to use a fast feeding technology to feed single sheet materials onto a conveyor, especially a conveyor belt.
REFERENCES:
patent: 3819173 (1974-06-01), Anderson et al.
patent: 4606173 (1986-08-01), Meier
patent: 4801036 (1989-01-01), Rathert
patent: 4988086 (1991-01-01), Schlough
patent: 4989850 (1991-02-01), Weller
patent: 5213318 (1993-05-01), Newhall
patent: 5560594 (1996-10-01), Gosslinghoff
patent: 5921538 (1999-07-01), Schlough
patent: 5979888 (1999-11-01), Schlough
Ellis Christopher P.
Greenberg Laurence A.
Heidelberger Druckmaschinen
Lerner Herbert L.
Mackey Patrick
LandOfFree
Apparatus and method for feeding sheet material magazines does not yet have a rating. At this time, there are no reviews or comments for this patent.
If you have personal experience with Apparatus and method for feeding sheet material magazines, we encourage you to share that experience with our LandOfFree.com community. Your opinion is very important and Apparatus and method for feeding sheet material magazines will most certainly appreciate the feedback.
Profile ID: LFUS-PAI-O-2490125