Patent ID: 7726457

Claim:
A currency processing device for receiving a stack of currency bills and rapidly processing the bills in the stack, the device comprising: an input receptacle positioned to receive a stack of bills to be processed, each bill having a leading edge and a trailing edge; a plurality of output receptacles configured to receive bills after the bills have been processed laterally offset from said input receptacle; a discriminating unit configured to determine the denomination of the bills, the discriminating unit including a detector positioned between said input receptacle and said output receptacles; and a transport mechanism for transporting the bills, one at a time, from the input receptacle to the output receptacles and past said detector of said discriminating unit, said transport mechanism including: at least first, second and third transport paths arranged to move currency bills from said input receptacle to at least one of said output receptacles with a wide edge of each of the currency bills leading, a bill rotating mechanism in said first transport path for rotating the currency bills around an axis passing through the leading and trailing edges of the currency bills and approximately orthogonal to the those edges so that the leading edge of a currency bill exiting the first transport path is aligned with said second path, and a bill rotating mechanism in said third transport path for rotating the currency bills around an axis passing through the leading and trailing edges of the currency bills and approximately orthogonal to the those edges so that the leading edge of a currency bill exiting said third transport path is aligned with said output receptacles, said transport mechanism moving the currency bills from said input receptacle to at least one of said output receptacles without reducing the speed at which the bills are moved.