The patent badge is an abbreviated version of the USPTO patent document. The patent badge does contain a link to the full patent document.
The patent badge is an abbreviated version of the USPTO patent document. The patent badge covers the following: Patent number, Date patent was issued, Date patent was filed, Title of the patent, Applicant, Inventor, Assignee, Attorney firm, Primary examiner, Assistant examiner, CPCs, and Abstract. The patent badge does contain a link to the full patent document (in Adobe Acrobat format, aka pdf). To download or print any patent click here.
Patent No.:
Date of Patent:
Sep. 16, 1980
Filed:
Aug. 20, 1979
Jerry R Jones, Greenfield, IN (US);
Ralph F Stephens, Carmel, IN (US);
Western Electric Company, Inc., New York, NY (US);
Abstract
Articles, such as rectangular thin film circuits (11), are sorted by advancing a row of the articles along a chute (20). The leading article (11-A) in the row is stopped in a test position with a releasable stop member (40), after which the lead article is tested for a characteristic, such as by a photoelectric detector (41) that scans a circuit and detects the absence or presence of an ink mark (16) previously applied to a defective circuit. If the article is of a first type (good circuit), the stop 40 is released so that the lead article advances further to a receiver (30). If the article is of a second type (bad circuit), a mechanism (45) is operated to eject the article transversely from the chute (arrow C). Preferably, an article to be ejected is pivoted (arrow F) about a transverse axis (F) to disengage the trailing edge (48) of the lead article (11-A) from the leading edge (49) of a following article (11-B) prior to ejection from the chute.