International Business Machines Corporation

Lowell M Simson

Willie Goff, Jr

Robert M Hofland

Allison H Caudill

Myron F Shlatz

Barton H Kunz

James W Stanley

Christopher Hawley

Electrophotographic copier or the like

A magnetic brush developer having a toner dispenser cooperable with a removable toner container of the bottle type so that transfer of toner to the dispenser occurs without spillage or exposure of the toner to the external environment. The bottle and dispenser have mating interfaces which must be properly located, and then rotated, before dumping of toner from the bottle to the dispenser can occur. The dispenser interface is positioned in a slidable cover so that the bottle's toner content can be evenly distributed along the length of the dispenser, this length corresponding substantially to the length of the developer's development zone.

Toner container and toner dispensing apparatus

Method and apparatus for automatically producing a duplexed copy in a document copier machine wherein the leading edge of the rectangular copy sheet is maintained during both passes through the machine and wherein both simplexed and duplexed copies may be collated. This method and apparatus is especially useful when the leading edge is the narrow dimension of the rectangular copy paper.

Paper orientation for duplexing and collating

A buckling type paper sheet feeding mechanism wherein the top sheet of a stack is separated from the underlying sheet by first driving the front sheet edge in a rearward direction against a rear restraint, causing the top sheet to buckle, and then reversing the direction of sheet drive, causing the top sheet to be fed in a forward direction over a front stack edge restraining or hold-down means. The top sheet is moved rearward by a variable force means which provides a progressively increasing buckling force, to thereby ensure reliable feed of paper of varying types, weights and humidity content, while at the same time minimizing the possibility of double sheet feed. A variable position rear restraint moves rearward, in synchronism with operation of the variable force means, to increase the column length of the top sheet as the buckling force increases.

Variable force sheet feeding mechanism

Growing community of inventors

Louisville, CO, United States of America

Lowell M Simson