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:
Mar. 23, 1999
Filed:
Aug. 30, 1996
Juehui Hong, San Diego, CA (US);
Caroline Zepeda, San Marcos, CA (US);
Michael Kennedy, San Diego, CA (US);
Hewlett-Packard Company, Palo Alto, CA (US);
Abstract
An image-related device has an image-medium receiving tray. The tray is designed by a method that enables the tray to control the contouring of sheets of image medium during reception. The tray has a planar surface and a curved surface. The curved surface is designed by selecting a series of transverse and longitudinal curves to define a curved surface that is generally concave in the transverse direction while also sloping upward in the longitudinal direction. The combined concave and sloped shape of the curved surface causes the leading-edge region of the image medium to transversely curl and thereby obtain sufficient rigidity to extend beyond the front end of the tray. In addition, the curved surface--operating in conjunction with the kickout mechanism of the device--interacts with sheets of medium in a way that causes the sheets to land on top of each other instead of sliding against each other, thereby reducing the possibility of smearing while at the same time producing a neat, evenly stacked pile of media.