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:
Oct. 09, 2001
Filed:
Mar. 16, 2000
Etsuzo Nomura, Kasugai, JP;
Akihiro Funahashi, Handa, JP;
Takashi Kondo, Oobu, JP;
Jun Gamano, Okazaki, JP;
Itaru Shibata, Nagoya, JP;
Brother Kogyo Kabushiki Kaisha, Nagoya, JP;
Abstract
A buttonhole forming apparatus includes a cutter, a cutter driving mechanism, and a needle plate. The needle plate has a needle plate base to hold a work cloth thereon and a pair of cutter guides in a recess to guide an edge of the cutter therein. The cutter guides are made of hard material on the inside and rubber on the outside. The hard material can be moved outward by the resilience of the rubber. The width of the cutter hole defined between the cutter guides is set as small as possible so that the cutter does not force the work cloth into the cutter hole when it is lowered where it remains clogged. When the cutter is gradually lowered, the edge of the cutter or a part of the work cloth to be cut makes contact with the tapered portions of the cutter guides, and the rubber is deformed to move the cutter guides outward. Thus, the cutting into the work cloth can be done as the width of the cutter is gradually enlarged, resulting in the formation of appropriate buttonholes without any interruption because the work cloth becomes clogged in the cutter hole.