US Patent Issued to Ricoh on April 29 for "Sheet feeder, automatic sheet feeder, image reader, and image forming apparatus" (Japanese Inventor)

ALEXANDRIA, Va., June 9 -- United States Patent no. 12,286,317, issued on April 29, was assigned to Ricoh Co. Ltd. (Tokyo).

"Sheet feeder, automatic sheet feeder, image reader, and image forming apparatus" was invented by Wataru Nozaki (Kanagawa, Japan).

According to the abstract* released by the U.S. Patent & Trademark Office: "A sheet feeder includes a stacker, a sheet feeding member, an aligner, a switcher, a size specifying unit, and circuitry. The sheet feeding member contacts and feeds a sheet stack on the stacker. The aligner is movable to align a position in a sheet width direction of the sheet stack on the stacker. The switcher switches the aligner from a separation state to a contact state without waiting for a feeding start ins...