Patent ID: 7581723
Filing Date: 2009-09-01
Classification: B43M

Abstract:
1. An apparatus for personalizing and inserting articles for mass distribution, comprising: an envelope hopper for holding a plurality of envelopes which each carry a unique machine readable code(s) associated with a unique individual; an article hopper for holding a plurality of articles for the individuals; a code scanner for reading the unique machine readable code(s) of the envelopes; an envelope feeder for moving one envelope at a time to the scanner for reading each machine readable code(s); an envelope conveyor for conveying the envelopes from the scanner and in a sequence corresponding to the order in which the unique machine readable code(s) were scanned, to an inserting station; a printer operatively connected to the scanner for printing personal information on articles, each corresponding the an individual for whom a unique machine readable code(s) has been read by the code scanner, the printer being selected from the group consisting of: a thermal transfer printer; a laser engraving printer; dot-matrix printer; and a laser printer; an article feeder for feeding articles from the article hopper to the printer for being printed with the personal information, and for feeding the printed articles in the same sequence to the inserting station; inserting means at the inserting station for inserting each article that has been printed with personal information, into a corresponding envelope from which the unique machine readable code(s) has been read by the scanner, the inserting means comprising a pusher for pushing each printed article into its corresponding envelope at the inserting station; envelope opening means at the inserting station for opening a mouth of each envelope for receiving the corresponding printed article; holding means for holding each envelope at the inserting station; and the article hopper being an inclined hopper for carrying a plurality of articles, the article feeder comprising a first elevating plate for lifting individual articles to a top of a first inclined plate, a transport belt for moving articles from a bottom of the first inclined plate to a second inclined plate, a second elevating plate adjacent a bottom of the second inclined plate for raising each article to a rotating feeder having teeth for engaging one article at a time and for moving one article at a time past the printer, the article feeder further comprising a third inclined plate with a pivoting portion for moving each article from the rotating feeder to the inserting station, the pivoting portion pivoting to discharge a printed article away from the inserting station when a corresponding envelope has failed to have its unique machine readable code(s) successfully read by the scanner.