Sheet feeding or delivering – Delivering to stack and feeding therefrom
Reexamination Certificate
1999-12-01
2001-06-05
Bollinger, David H. (Department: 3651)
Sheet feeding or delivering
Delivering to stack and feeding therefrom
C271S065000, C271S186000
Reexamination Certificate
active
06241236
ABSTRACT:
CROSS REFERENCE TO RELATED APPLICATIONS, IF ANY
None
BACKGROUND OF THE INVENTION AND PRIOR ART
The present invention relates to the transport of individual cut sheets of flat flexible media such as paper, vellum, transparencies or the like through a transport path which may have various branches for the delivery of sheets such as printed sheets of media from an input location to a desired location. For the purposes of illustration but not limitation, the invention will be described in the context of a document scanning apparatus having a sheet transport path which extends from a stack of document sheets to be scanned to and through a scanning location to a scanned document location where the scanned sheets are stacked. More particularly, the invention is concerned with the guiding and movement of sheets in a scanning apparatus or printer capable of duplex scanning or printing wherein one side of a media sheet is first scanned or printed and then, if desired, the individual sheets may then be turned over and routed back to the scanning or printing region for scanning or printing the other side of the sheet. The teachings of the invention are applicable generally to any office or business machine in which flexible media sheets must be moved to selected paths.
As used herein, the term “sheet processing apparatus” is therefore intended to broadly include, but not necessarily be limited to, printers, stand alone document copiers, facsimile machines, document scanning machines and combinations of such units.
SUMMARY OF THE INVENTION
The present invention provides a method of processing sheet media in a sheet processing apparatus comprising the steps of:
a) moving individual media sheets from a first location to a processing location of said sheet processing apparatus;
b) processing a first face side of a media sheet at said processing location;
c) moving said sheet from said processing location to cause a leading edge of said sheet to engage a moving generally radially extending surface of a sheet transport roller assembly;
d) rotating said transport roller assembly in a selected direction to cause said surface to move said leading edge as it moves from said processing location into one of two nips defining sheet delivery paths extending between said transport roller assembly and first and second sheet guides;
d) gripping opposite face sides of said sheet in said selected one of said nips and rotating said transport roller assembly in a direction to pull said sheet between said roller assembly and the associated guide to move said sheet away from said processing location toward a processed sheet location.
In apparatus terms, the present invention comprises a sheet media processing apparatus including a sheet media input location, a sheet media processing location, a processed sheet media location and sheet guides defining a media transport path extending from said input location through said processing location to said processed sheet location, sheet transport means for moving individual media sheets along said path, said media transport path including a sheet routing space between a sheet input path and first and second sheet output paths, said sheet transport means including a rotatably driven sheet transport roller assembly in said routing space having a peripheral sheet guide surface arranged and configured to engage a leading edge of said sheet and move said leading edge to one or the other of said output paths, and a power drive for rotating said transport roller assembly in opposite directions to move said leading edge of said sheet into a selected output path and toward said output location.
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patent: 485269 (1992-03-01), None
Bollinger David H.
Hewlett--Packard Company
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