Appeal 2006-3398
Application 10/132,199
that the sheet group control means 32 registrates when a separator sheet 3 is next to
leave the magazine 12 and generates a signal that is sent to the driving motor 33 of
the sorting device 5 to control operation of the sorting device 5 (Parkander, col. 3,
ll. 52-58). Thus, the separator sheets are individually distinguishable and separate
from the other sheets provided by the laser printer 4. Parkander does not disclose
restraining from singling and then releasing for singling a separator sheet and at
least the associated group of sheet material and does not disclose a restraining unit
located before the singler and arranged to restrain each separator and at least the
following group of sheet material from singling and to release them for singling.
Belec discloses an apparatus for identifying a collation of sheets and
separating the entire collation from a stack of sheets (Belec, col. 1, ll. 9-11).
Belec’s apparatus is directed at solving problems associated with high-speed paper
handling encountered in accumulators (Belec, col. 1, ll. 38-46). Belec’s solution is
to process the sheets as a collation while they are still in their original stack so that
rather than separating each sheet from the stack and then re-accumulating the
sheets at very high velocities for collation processing, Belec removes a collation
from the supply stack all at once and processes the stack as a whole (Belec, col. 1,
ll. 52-58). Belec discloses a scanner 16 that reads control document information,
including the number of sheets in the collation, from a bottom most sheet 18 in a
sheet supply stack 12 (Belec, col. 3, ll. 22-28). Belec discloses that a corner
separation device 21 separates and deflects the corner of each sheet’s lead edge
downward as each sheet is counted and recognized based on the information
obtained by the scanner 16 (Belec, col. 3, ll. 30-41). Belec discloses that once the
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