Image producing apparatus having an image reading unit

Details Image producing apparatus having an image reading unit Image producing apparatus having an image reading unit

1998-03-30

2001-01-30

Pendegrass, Joan (Department: 2852)

Electrophotography

Combined with diverse subject matter

C358S296000, C399S363000

Reexamination Certificate

active

06181884

ABSTRACT:

BACKGROUND OF THE INVENTION
This invention relates to an image producing apparatus having an image reading unit, and more particularly, to a multi-function printer, a facsimile machine or a facsimile and scanner machine.
Conventionally, in a printer having an image reading unit, it has been known that the image reading unit is contained inside a printer unit thereof, and a paper passage route for printing also acts as a paper conveying passage for conveying a document in an image reading operation. Moreover, in a conventional facsimile machine or a conventional facsimile and scanner machine, an image reading unit for facsimile is shared as a scanner for reading out images for a personal computer.
However, the above-mentioned conventional printer in which the paper is fed from the only one paper feed tray of a body, entails a trouble of removing the paper from the paper feed tray in every time of image reading operation.
Moreover, in the above-mentioned conventional facsimile and scanner machine, a paper feed tray for feeding a document to the image reading unit, a discharge tray and a paper passage route of the document can not be shared as a paper passage route for the printing unit, so that the apparatus itself becomes upsized, and takes up a larger installation space. Furthermore, the apparatus consists of a larger amount of components, so that the apparatus entails high manufacturing costs.
SUMMARY OF THE INVENTION
The present invention is made to solve the above-mentioned problems. One object of the invention is to provide a less expensive multi-function image producing apparatus having an image reading unit, which does not entail the trouble of removing the paper from the paper feed tray in every time of image reading operation, and does not require the larger installation space since the paper passage route for the document to be read out and the paper passage route of the printing unit are shared with each other.
In order to achieve the above-described object, an image producing apparatus having an image reading unit, comprises: a body; an image producing unit which is contained in the body; a first paper feed unit which feeds the paper into the image producing unit; a second paper feed unit which feeds the paper into the image producing unit; a paper stack which contains the paper discharged from the image producing unit; a paper conveying passage which conveys the paper selectively from the first paper feed unit and the second paper feed unit, and conveys the paper discharged from the image producing unit into the paper stack; and, an image reading unit which reads out images on the paper conveyed in the paper conveying passage.
In the above-described construction, paper for printing are usually contained in the second paper feed unit (used as a paper feed unit only for printing), and the first paper feed unit can be kept vacant for acting as a manual paper-feed unit in a usual state. Accordingly, a trouble of removing the paper from the paper feed tray, can be avoided in the case of loading a document to be read out in the manual paper-feed tray. Besides, since the apparatus dispenses with a paper feed tray and a discharge tray used only for the image reading, the apparatus can be downsized, and take up less installation space. Furthermore, the apparatus of the present invention includes fewer components, so that the manufacturing costs can be decreased.


REFERENCES:
patent: 4743941 (1988-05-01), Takano
patent: 5028957 (1991-07-01), Sakamoto
patent: 5038228 (1991-08-01), Takada
patent: 5359425 (1994-10-01), Machara et al.
patent: 5751448 (1998-05-01), Kim et al.
patent: 5996995 (1999-12-01), Kim et al.
patent: 63-163376 (1988-07-01), None
patent: 9-321924 (1997-12-01), None

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