Patent ID: 7182238

Claim:
A feeding mechanism for sheet staples comprising: a reciprocating plate-like member which is provided under a cartridge in which stacked sheet staples are contained and which is parallel to a feeding out direction of the sheet staples and extends in a vertical direction with respect to an up and down moving direction of a driver and reciprocates forwardly and backwardly with respect to the moving direction of the driver, in response to up and down movements of the driver for driving each sheet staple; a link mechanism which converts the down moving direction of the driver to backward movement of the reciprocating plate-like member; a feeding pawl mounted rotatably, in a range of a predetermined angle around a center of rotation of the feeding pawl, on said reciprocating plate-like member; and a spring biasing said reciprocating plate-like member towards the moving direction of the driver, wherein the reciprocating plate-like member comprises a pair of supporting plate parts projecting downward from positions of the reciprocating plate-like member away from each other in a vertical direction with respect to the reciprocating plate-like member, and each of the supporting plate parts has an upper portion with a curved concave portion with respect to said plate-like member respectively, the feeding pawl has a pair of engaging portions which extend laterally and are engaged with the concave portions of the supporting plate parts respectively, and a spring receiving portion is formed at a backward end portion of the feeding pawl, the rotation of the feeding pawl is carried out about the engaging portions within the curved concave portions of the supporting plate parts, one end of said spring is engaged with the spring receiving portion of said feeding pawl under the center of rotation of said feeding pawl, and said reciprocating plate-like member is urged towards the driver through said feeding pawl via the feeding spring; by means of a driving action of the sheet staples by the driver, the feeding pawl is in a fallen state, and the reciprocating plate-like member moves backwardly with respect to the driver; and by means of a returning action of the driver to an initial upward position, the feeding pawl is rotated by a biasing force of the feeding spring and is in a raised state, and is moved forwardly towards the driver together with the reciprocating plate-like member, to feed out each sheet staple.