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. 28, 2004
Filed:
Dec. 08, 2003
Masaki Ohtani, Kanagawa, JP;
Ricoh Company, Ltd., Tokyo, JP;
Abstract
An image forming system of the present invention includes an image forming method and section for forming an image on a sheet fed thereto. A stapler included in a finisher staples a stack of sheets each carrying image formed by the image forming section thereon. A controller causes the image forming section to form an image in accordance with input image data and causes the stapler to staple the stack of sheets at a preselected point or points. When sheets of different sizes are mixed together, the controller inhibits the stapler from stapling the stack except when the short edges of a large size sheet and the long edges of a small size sheet are identical in length in a direction perpendicular to the direction of sheet feed and when all the images printed on the sheets have the same orientation when the stapled stack is spread.