Patent ID: 7735339

Claim:
A method of working a glass plate, comprising the steps of: (a) disposing a planar glass plate in a first section; (b) sucking and holding the planar glass plate at a holding surface having a concave shape or V-shape in cross-sectional view while disposed in said first section to bend the glass plate into a concave shape in cross-sectional view so as to suppress deflection of the glass plate due to its own weight; (c) raising the held glass plate under suction; (d) transporting the raised glass plate which is in the sucked and held state from the first section to a second section and then lowering the transported glass plate into a lowered position; (e) canceling the suction of the lowered glass plate in the lowered position to have the glass plate in a planar state; (f) working the planar glass plate in at least one of said first section and said second section; and (g) dimensioning said holding surface to have a length as measured in a transporting direction of the glass plate that is greater than a width of said holding surface as measured in a direction perpendicular to the transporting direction.