Document stacking apparatus

Claim 1

Document stacking apparatus for continuously stacking a plurality of documents in the sequential order in which they are fed into said apparatus, comprising: bed means inclined with respect to the horizontal plane upon which documents to be stacked can be deposited; means for feeding said documents into said apparatus; document guide means for guiding said documents along an open-ended predetermined path from said feeding means; deflecting means operatively cooperable with said guide means for defining said predetermined path; a baffle movably mounted upon said bed means and operatively cooperable with said guide means for defining a stacking cavity, said baffle being biased toward a first position whereby said stacking cavity is minimized and being moveable under the influence of incoming documents to be stacked against said bias toward a second position so as to expand said stacking cavity and accommodate successive documents to be stacked, said baffle being slidably disposed upon said bed means between said first and second positions and being of a length sufficient to accommodate variously sized documents without adjustment and being movable only along a line between said first and said second positions in order to accept said plurality of documents, said baffle otherwise remaining in a substantially stable position; and document retarding means disposed adjacent one end of said predetermined path and rotatable in a direction counter to that which would normally feed said documents along said predetermined path for retarding the conveyance of said documents to be stacked so as to prevent the escape of said documents to be stacked from said stacking cavity and to facilitate the stacking of said documents within said stacking cavity.