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:
Nov. 09, 1999
Filed:
Mar. 18, 1997
Taichiro Yamashita, Tsuchiura, JP;
Takao Terayama, Ushikyu, JP;
Yasunori Hamada, Tsuchiura, JP;
Itsunori Utsumi, Owariasahi, JP;
Noriaki Hagiwara, Tsuchiura, JP;
Hitachi, Ltd., Tokyo, JP;
Abstract
A hopper for feeding documents also serves as a stacker for stacking therein documents in a generally upright position. When the fed documents or the once-stacked documents are to be fed to a singulation mechanism, the hopper or stacker is put into a feeding mode, and when the documents are to be stacked or sorted, the hopper or stacker is switched to a stacking mode. Such hoppers or stackers are arranged in a plurality of stages, and when each sorting is to be effected, addresses are read while changing the mode of each hopper or stacker to repeat the sorting, so that the documents are sequenced by a radix sort method.