Pitney Bowes Inc.

Richard E Kish

William J Wright

Dean H Foster

Andrew W Rastorguyeff

In a machine including structure for feeding an unsealed envelope downstream in a path of travel, wherein the envelope has a body portion and a flap portion folded in overlying relationship with the body portion and has a free edge, there is provided apparatus for unfolding the flap portion of an envelope. The apparatus includes a first guide member extending parallel to the path of travel; a finger member rotatable into engagement with the flap portion for bending the body portion against the first guide member to form a gap between the flap portion and body portion; a second guide member extending into the path of travel for engaging an envelope fed thereto downstream of the finger member; structure for sensing an envelope in the path of travel; structure responsive to the sensing structure for causing the finger member to rotate into engagement with the flap portion when the envelope is fed downstream in the path of travel; and the second guide member dimensioned for entry into the gap and progressively moving the free edge of the flap portion away from the body portion when the feeding structure feeds the envelope into engagement with the second guide member.

Envelope opening apparatus

An apparatus for collating pages of a document, which are sequentially printed on a continuous sheet in multipage rows, that is in multi-up fashion, comprises a plurality of decks at least equal in number to the number of pages in each row. Each deck has a surface for receiving one document page and is positionable at a level above one deck surface adjacent thereto to define a step-like structure. A page slitter separates adjacent pages in a multipage row and a row cutter separates adjacent multipage rows. From the slitter and cutter, alongitudial delivery mechanism simultaneously delivers each of the individual pages to a single deck. A lateral transfer mechanism then transfers each page of the document from the deck to which it was delivered to the top of the page delivered to the adjacent lower deck in order to complete the collating operation.

Apparatus for collating pages of multi-up printed documents

In a label applicating apparatus a self-contained vacuum generating means is incorporated in the applicator drum so that a partial vacuum may be established at a predetermined peripheral portion of the drum in response to the rotation of said drum. The generated partial vacuum is maintained for a predetermined portion of each cyclically rotary movement of the drum.

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Fairfield, CT, United States of America

Richard E Kish