Document-handling apparatus

Claim 2

In a document-handling apparatus, means for identifying selected ones of documents handled by said apparatus and formed into a stack of documents, said means comprising documentconveying means for controllably moving documents individually along a defined path through said apparatus, sensing means for detecting the presence of a document at a selected point along said path, stacking means at the end of said path downstream from said sensing means for forming a stack of documents with their leading edges substantially aligned, control means responsive to said sensing means for allowing selected documents to continue movement in their direction of travel beyond the leading edge of said stack, and means for limiting said movement of said selected documents so that said documents remain a part of said stack.

Claim 3

In the document-handling apparatus of claim 1, in which said stacking means includes a stop means normally preventing movement of individual documents beyond the leading edge of said stack, and said control means is operatively combined with said stop means so as to move said stop means out of the path of an incoming document to an offset position and thereby allow selected documents to pass beyond said stop means.

Claim 4

In the document-handling apparatus of claim 2, in which said stacking apparatus includes a stack support and stack height control means to provide for movement of said stack support up and down so as to maintain the top of said document stack at substantially the same level at all times, said stop means being movable out of the path of a selected incoming document to allow the document to move onto the top of the stack, but beyond the leading edge of said stack.

Claim 5

In the document-handling apparatus of claim 2, in which said control means includes retard means for delaying the movement of said stop means a sufficient time after a selected document is detected by said sensing means to allow the selected document to travel from said sensing means to said stacking means.

Claim 6

In the document-handling apparatus of claim 4, in which said retard means is synchronized with the document speed of said conveying means so that the time delay of movement of said stop means will vary correspondingly with the speed of the documents along said path.

Claim 7

In the document-handling apparatus of claim 4, in which said control means includes a pulse generator operable in synchronism with said document-conveying means to continuously produce a train of pulses, a pulse counter operatively combined with said pulse generator and operable responsive to said sensing means to commence counting pulses from said generator upon detection of a lead edge of a document by said sensing meanS, a counter detector set to a count equivalent to the distance from said sensing means to a selected point upstream from said stop means, offset control means responsive to predetermined conditions to produce an offset signal, and means combined with said counter detector to control movement of said stop means out of the document path when said preset count has been attained and if an offset signal has been received from said offset control means.

Claim 8

In the document-handling apparatus of claim 6, in which said counter detector resets said pulse counter to zero when said preset count has been attained.

Claim 9

In the document-handling apparatus of claim 6, in which said control means includes error correction means that provides an error signal if said offset signal is received after a document selected for offsetting has come to rest with its leading edge aligned with said stack.

Claim 10

In the document-handling apparatus of claim 2, in which stop control means is provided to control the offset time of said stop means in accordance with the rate of document travel produced by said conveying means.

Claim 11

In the document-handling apparatus of claim 9, in which there is provided a pulse generator operable in synchronism with said document-conveying means to continuously produce a train of pulses, a pulse counter operatively combined with said pulse generator to count pulses produced thereby, said counter being responsive to a signal from said control means to start counting pulses at the time said stop means is moved to an offset position, a counter detector set a count equivalent to the distance required for a document to travel from a position just ahead of said stop means to an offset position, and means combined with said counter detector to return said stop means to a stop position when said preset count has been attained.

Claim 12

In the document-handling apparatus of claim 1 in which said control means is capable of serially controlling the number of documents that can be handled at one time by the document-conveying means between said sensing means and said stacking means.

Claim 15

The method of claim 12 including the steps of: providing a stop normally preventing movement of each of the documents along said path beyond a fixed point, thereby forming said stack; controllably withdrawing said stop to allow a selected document to move beyond said point; providing a second stop to limit the movement of said selected documents so that they remain a part of the stack; and returning said stop to a position stopping the documents from moving beyond said fixed point.