Sheet feeding or delivering – Feeding – By means to convey sheet
Reexamination Certificate
2001-04-09
2003-06-17
Bollinger, David H. (Department: 3651)
Sheet feeding or delivering
Feeding
By means to convey sheet
Reexamination Certificate
active
06578845
ABSTRACT:
BACKGROUND OF THE INVENTION
1. Field of the Invention
The present invention generally relates to an automatic document feeding apparatus, especially a feeding apparatus having an improved separation mechanism utilized in the feeding path.
2. Background Description
Scanner devices have been broadly employed to the image processing industry. The scanners can generally be categorized to two types, which are sheet-fed scanners and flatbed scanners. However, if there are many documents containing mass papers to be necessarily scanned, it would be difficult to employ a flatbed scanner to do the job. In this case, an automatic document feeder (ADF) is utilized in a flatbed scanner. The ADF is able to feed papers one by one to the flatbed scanner.
As shown in
FIG. 1
, an automatic document feeder
1
has an upper body
11
and a lower body
13
. A feeding path
10
is located between the upper body
11
and the lower body
13
. Main rollers
16
,
20
and the auxiliary rollers
14
,
18
further move a document along the feeding path
10
. The feeding path
10
is formed by an inner shell
102
and an outer shell
104
. The feeding path further contains a scanning area
12
which is an opening formed in the bottom of the outer shell
104
. By the main rollers
16
,
20
and the auxiliary rollers
14
,
18
, the document
34
is moved along the feeding path
10
. The document is therefore inputted from the entrance
24
to the feeding path
10
, and then be outputted to the exit
26
. The automatic document feeder is positioned on the flatbed scanner
40
. The scanning area
12
is located exactly on the image reading device of the flatbed scanner
40
. When the document
34
is passed through the scanning area
12
, the flatbed scanner will scan the document
34
.
In the real using environment, the document
34
is occasionally jammed in the feeding path
10
. In this case, the automatic document feeder is able to be separated to two parts such as an upper body and a lower body, along the separation axle
28
, in order to clear the jammed document. However, referring to
FIGS. 2 and 3
, if the jammed area is near the entrance
12
or the scanning area
12
, it would be easier to remove the jammed document since there are lots spaces to clear the document. But if the jammed area is near the exit
26
or the separation axle
28
, it would be very difficult to remove the jammed document since the space left there is tight.
SUMMARY OF THE INVENTION
It is therefore an object of the present invention to provide an automatic document feeding apparatus for automatically feeding documents into the feeding path, which provides larger spaces for removing jammed documents in the feeding path.
REFERENCES:
patent: 4124204 (1978-11-01), VanBuskirk
patent: 4583726 (1986-04-01), Nogi et al.
patent: 5236339 (1993-08-01), Nishiumi et al.
patent: 5265869 (1993-11-01), Morita
patent: 5431389 (1995-07-01), Wensink et al.
patent: 5443255 (1995-08-01), Nanba et al.
patent: 5547179 (1996-08-01), Wilcox et al.
patent: 5765825 (1998-06-01), Watase
patent: 5953985 (1999-09-01), Kobayashi
patent: 6145828 (2000-11-01), Arai
patent: 6332611 (2001-12-01), Tomita
Bollinger David H.
Lowe Hauptman & Gilman & Berner LLP
Mustek Systems Inc.
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