ALEXANDRIA, Va., July 21 -- United States Patent no. 12,686,584, issued on July 21, was assigned to CANON K.K. (Tokyo).
"Sheet supporting apparatus and image forming system" was invented by Michinari Watanabe (Chiba, Japan).
According to the abstract* released by the U.S. Patent & Trademark Office: "A sheet supporting apparatus includes a sheet discharge unit, a conveyance unit, a stacking unit, and a supporting unit. The sheet discharge unit conveys a sheet to discharge the sheet. The conveyance unit including a gripper member engaging with a leading edge of the sheet that has been discharged from the sheet discharge unit. The conveyance unit conveys the sheet engaged with the gripper member by moving the gripper member. The stacking uni...