Did You Know...
...that the Eveready Battery began as an invention called the "electric flowerpot," which was a tube with a battery and light bulb inside? The idea was to fasten this gizmo to the side of a flowerpot so it would illuminate the flowers from the bottom. The idea died on the vine and the businessman who licensed the flower pot, Conrad Huber, was left with a pile of useless tubes -- until he found a way to market them as batteries to light the world!
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| Number | Title | Issue Date |
| 7806402 | Bill discriminating and counting apparatus A bill discriminating and counting apparatus in which a plurality of bills with different sizes are filled between side hopper members and fed into a transport path by a feeding mechanism. The feeding mechanism comprises a plurality of rollers disposed in a bilatera... | 10/05/2010 |
| 7331576 | Feeder device having increased media capacity and multiple media thickness feed capability and associated method A feeder device is provided, comprising a drive mechanism for driving a media unit in a feed direction, the media unit being provided from a stack of media units by a hopper including upstream and downstream hopper members. A directing member associated with the ups... | 02/19/2008 |
| 7310922 | Banded envelopes and method for assembling a package of banded envelopes A method for processing envelopes including the steps of providing a plurality of generally aligned envelopes and compressing the plurality of envelopes together. The method further includes the step of placing a band around the compressed envelopes such that the ba... | 12/25/2007 |
| 7290146 | Managed credential issuance In a method of issuing a credential, a request for issuance of the credential is received. Next, a unique identification for the requested credential is assigned and data elements corresponding to the credential are provided. A credential production data collection ... | 10/30/2007 |
| 7121426 | Apparatus for dispensing flat items A vending machine for dispensing flat items includes a housing having a removable collection pan with a pan bag, a door with display windows, a coin slide mechanism extending through the door and a folder slide mounted on the inside of the door. The folder slide rel... | 10/17/2006 |
| 7048273 | System and method for monitoring grouped resources System and method for monitoring grouped resources. A system and method of monitoring resource units in a stack is provided. The system and method includes providing a group of resource units and determining a thickness of one or more of the resource units. The syst... | 05/23/2006 |
| 6932527 | Card cartridge A card cartridge includes a housing having a pair of opposing side walls, a top, a front wall, a back wall opposite the front wall, and a base. The housing includes an interior cavity that is sized to accommodate a stack of cards, a card access, and a card output sl... | 08/23/2005 |
| 6698748 | System and method for singulating a stack of sheet-like materials An improved hopper and singulating/feed assembly for a utilization device, such as an inserter, that feeds sheet-like materials from a hopper feed stack that reduces the various geometrical and physical problems that lead to jams, misfeeds and failures to... | 03/02/2004 |
| 6663100 | System and method for supplying stacked material to a utilization device A system and method for storing and dispensing a stack of materials to a feed station of the utilization device that is adapted to feed stacks of the materials is provided. The materials, typically sheets or envelopes, are provided in a predetermined orie... | 12/16/2003 |
| 6585257 | Sheet feeder with counteracting forces A method and apparatus for reducing burden in retrieving sheets of material from the bottom of a substantially vertical stack of sheets in a sheet feeder. The apparatus comprises a first convex surface at the bottom half of the stack protruding into one s... | 07/01/2003 |
| 6554512 | Printer for printing deformable flat supports and its loader A printer comprises a loader (2) for supports (1) to be printed, a printing device (9) and transfer elements delimiting a series of gripping regions (8) forming a transport path (8A) to lead sequentially the printed supports (1) from the outlet (5) of the... | 04/29/2003 |
| 6457886 | Card stack lifter and exception feed A printer for printing identification cards, in particular, is provided with a hopper for holding a stack of cards to be printed. A card feeder will feed one card at a time from the hopper. The hopper is mounted so that it can be moved away from the card ... | 10/01/2002 |
| 6457707 | Automatic document feeder An automatic document feeder for moving a stack of individual sheets from a stack loaded position to a single sheet separator in a document processing apparatus uses a gate comprised of a rotatable stack stop having a finger movable between a stack blocki... | 10/01/2002 |
| 6416047 | Frictional feeder for paper stacks or the like A frictional feeder for paper stacks has a frictional conveyor belt that receives a paper stack of paper sheets from above and conveys individual paper sheets of the paper stack in a conveying direction of the feeder. A curved support is positioned above ... | 07/09/2002 |
| 6409164 | Feeder pile restrictor and method A pile restrictor includes a restrictor body and a restricting blade attached to the body, the restricting blade being adjustable angularly with respect to the body during an operating mode of a sheet feeder. The present invention also provides a pile fee... | 06/25/2002 |
| 6231042 | Inclining slide for card dispensing device A card-dispensing device has a mechanism for forcibly modifying the attitude of the slide during the forward run of the slide from a horizontal attitude in which the slide is pushing a card forward to an attitude which is inclined through a fixed angle, a... | 05/15/2001 |
| 6062558 | Paper feeder in printer A paper feeder in a printer comprises a bottom recording paper guide, an extreme end recording paper guide, a roller, and a mechanism for transferring paper. The bottom recording paper guide is inclined in the paper feeding direction at an angle in the ra... | 05/16/2000 |
| 6050563 | Sheet feeder An electromechanical friction feed device for controlling the single feed of sheet-like articles from a stack of such articles has a feed belt and stripper wheel that are used to draw a single article from the bottom of the stack to the discharge section ... | 04/18/2000 |
| 6050562 | Stacked sheet feeder A sheet feeder has a pair of rearward feed belts declining in a downstream direction at a first angle for supporting a rear portion of a stack of sheets and a forward feed belt declining in a downstream direction at a lesser angle than the first angle pos... | 04/18/2000 |
| 5887867 | Sheet supplying apparatus including first and second sheet supply rollers and a separation roller all made of the same material A sheet supplying apparatus is provided including a sheet stacking unit for stacking a plurality of sheets, a first roller for supplying an uppermost sheet on the sheet stacking unit and a second roller for supplying a lowermost sheet on the sheet stackin... | 03/30/1999 |
| 5695183 | Paper interleaver A paper feed system suitable for use with a portion control machine to provide paper sheets for separating portions, including a paper hopper mountable to a portion control machine and adapted to receive and temporarily retain a stack of paper sheets. The... | 12/09/1997 |
| 5664786 | Apparatus and method for use in handling sheet material articles A rotating separator disk is movable between sheet material articles in a stack of sheet material articles. A variable speed drive which is connected with the separator disk and rotates the separator disk. The variable speed drive is operable to vary the ... | 09/09/1997 |
| 5606430 | Image reading apparatus having projections on surface of hopper near side edges of paper feed path to prevent close contact and reduce static electricity An image apparatus is provided with a bottom take-out type automatic paper feeding mechanism. Documents are sequentially taken out from a lowermost document by coaction of a paper feeding roller and a document separation pad which is elastically pressed a... | 02/25/1997 |
| 5573338 | Automatic paper feeder and frame structure of document input device An automatic paper feeder of a document input device includes a pick roller 20, separator pads 68 that come into contact with the pick roller 20, a first pair of pick springs 58, and a second pick spring 60. The first pick springs 58 are disposed on the u... | 11/12/1996 |
| 5547336 | Magazine release assembly An article release assembly mounted on the from or exit end of an article supply magazine. The article release assembly is for use in feeding successive thick or heavy rigid articles from an article supply magazine. The article release assembly cooperates... | 08/20/1996 |
| 5529211 | Apparatus for conveying, accommodating and paying out bank notes Apparatus for conveying, accommodating and paying out bank notes, includes shaft-mounted guide rollers for feeding bank notes from a stacking space to a pay-out tray, shaft-mounted vane wheels with eccentric ends mounted between adjacent guide rollers, a ... | 06/25/1996 |
| 5499805 | Paper sheet storing apparatus A paper sheet storing apparatus includes a stacking section for storing paper sheets in a stack in a predetermined direction. In the stacking section are provided a movable shutter for receiving and supporting paper sheets which are taken in the stacking ... | 03/19/1996 |
| 5491567 | Image reading apparatus A paper feed roller (5) is divided into a first roller (5a) and a second roller (5b); a slit (58) through which about 10 to 20 sheets of documents can pass is formed between the first roller and a gate plate (57) opposite to this; and the paper fed out th... | 02/13/1996 |
| 5441248 | Feeding mechanism A feeding mechanism for flat flexible items is provided having a hopper for receiving a stack of the items, a rotatable cylindrical member positioned to engage a lowermost item of the stack with an outer circumferential surface thereof, a motor for rotati... | 08/15/1995 |
| 5372358 | Introduction front stop for a device feeding box blanks A front stop for a feeding device has a planar lower surface connected to a round part and is provided with a bore, which is connected to a fluid source and has channels extending to the planar flat surface to enable a flow of fluid between a blank being ... | 12/13/1994 |
| 5363971 | Automatic carrier sequence bar code sorter A machine for sorting documents and, in particular, for carrier sequence bar code sorting of mail has been described. The device uses three passes and 11 vertically disposed top fed stackers. The stackers also have a delivery system from the bottom thereo... | 11/15/1994 |
| 5301834 | Card vending machine A card vending machine comprising a cabinet having a plurality of card holding and dispensing modules individually removably positioned therein with each of the modules including a card holding portion and card dispensing portion. Each of the modules incl... | 04/12/1994 |
| 5265858 | Apparatus for converting a sheet material feeder from on edge to bottom feed An existing sheet material feeder has a feed tray which holds sheet material in an on-edge orientation in which side surfaces of the sheet material are generally vertical. An apparatus is provided to convert the sheet material feeder to one having a feed ... | 11/30/1993 |
| 5255905 | Downhill bottom vacuum corrugated feeder and method A bottom vacuum corrugated feeder (BVCF) includes a tray for supporting a stack of documents. The tray is angled downhill relative to the feeding direction of the documents such that the leading edge of the stack is urged to a common stop member. The tray... | 10/26/1993 |
| 5148187 | Printing apparatus with mechanism precisely defining printing start position A color printer is provided in which a paper sheet is wrapped about a rotatable platen and three colors are printed on the sheet, to obtain an image, by a thermal head and a color ribbon during three rotations of the platen. In a paper feeding device for ... | 09/15/1992 |
| 5141218 | Sheet feeder A sheet feeder including a fixed gate provided on a base and approximately orthogonal to the direction of feed of sheets, and a movable guide plate provided on the base in parallel to the fixed gate movably toward and away from the fixed gate and position... | 08/25/1992 |
| 5139250 | Oscillating blade envelope rotator A gravity fed, "load-while-run" envelope feeder places a high capacity envelope storage bin's long dimension against a printer which creates a small footprint. The feeder transfers the envelopes from the storage bin to a horizontal transporation area with... | 08/18/1992 |
| 5137172 | Paper feed system A paper feed system suitable for use with a patty making machine to provide paper for separating patties, including a stack of sheet-form paper having a deformable element on the side edge thereof, a paper hopper, and a guide on the inside surface of a si... | 08/11/1992 |
| 5116303 | Magazine for flat articles, such as folding boxes lying flat A magazine for flat articles, in particular folding boxes lying flat, including a horizontal conveyor apparatus for receiving a supply stack of folded boxes and a vertical receiving chute from which the folding boxes can be withdrawn in succession and del... | 05/26/1992 |
| 5112037 | Front feeder for large size mail handling machine A front-end feeder for a mixed mail handling machine employs a raised deck portion spaced from a registration wall for the mail pieces. The raised deck portion, preferably a plurality of fixed steps of increasing height, provides additional tilting and gu... | 05/12/1992 |
