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:
May. 02, 2006
Filed:
Apr. 07, 2004
Steven E. Flannery, Wayland, MA (US);
Steven E. Flannery, Wayland, MA (US);
Avery Dennison Corporation, Pasadena, CA (US);
Abstract
A device for dispensing an individual plastic fastener from a supply of fastener stock to couple together two or more objects. The supply of fastener stock includes a plurality of equidistantly spaced cross links which are coupled at one end to a continuous side rail. The fastener dispensing device includes a hollowed sharpened needle shaped to define a longitudinal bore and a feed mechanism for advancing the continuous side rail of the fastener stock into direct axial alignment behind the longitudinal bore of the hollowed needle. The feed mechanism includes a rotatably mounted feed shaft, a pair of feed wheels fixedly mounted on the feed shaft, each feed wheel comprising a plurality of sprockets which are sized and shaped to engage the supply of fastener stock, and first and second clutch wheels which are releasably matingly engageable with one another, the first clutch wheel being fixedly mounted on the feed shaft and the second clutch wheel being rotatably mounted on the feed shaft, each of the first and second clutch wheels including a plurality of ratchets. As a feature of the invention, the number of ratchets on each clutch wheel is at most equal to the number of sprockets on each feed wheel.