Patent ID: 8400690

Claim:
An image reading apparatus, comprising: a document tray on which documents to be read are placed; first and second output trays onto which the documents to be read may be output; a first conveyance path through which the documents to be read are conveyed from the document tray to the first output tray; a conveying roller that conveys the documents from the document tray to the first conveyance path; a second conveyance path located downstream of the conveying roller in a document conveyance direction and branched from the first conveyance path at a branch point in the first conveyance path, first selected ones of the documents being conveyed to the second output tray through the second conveyance path; a switch unit adjacent the branch point and configured to change a conveyance path of the documents between the first conveyance path and the second conveyance path; a multi-feed determination unit configured to determine whether the documents are in a multi-fed state; a reading unit configured to read and generate first image data from second selected ones of the documents that pass through the first conveyance path; an image storage unit configured to store the first image data generated by the reading unit; a control unit configured to control the switch unit to (i) change a position of the switch unit such that the second selected ones of the documents are continuously guided through the first conveyance path and to the first output tray when the multi-feed determination unit determines that the documents are not in the multi-fed state, and (ii) change the position of the switch unit such that the first selected ones of the documents are conveyed through the second conveyance path and to the second output tray without being read by the reading unit when the multi-feed determination unit determines that the documents are in the multi-fed state; and a multi-fed image storage unit configured to store second image data, generated by the reading unit after reading second image data from the first selected ones of the documents image data, after the reading of the second selected ones of the documents has completed, wherein the control unit is further configured to assign information of page order of the second selected ones of the documents to the image data stored in the image storage unit.