Patent ID: 7040559

Claim:
A shredder comprising: a housing; a shredder mechanism mounted in the housing and including an electrically powered motor and cutter elements, the shredder mechanism enabling articles to be shredded to be fed into the cutter elements and the motor being operable to drive the cutter elements so that the cutter elements shred the articles fed therein; a throat opening provided on the housing for enabling articles to be fed into the shredder mechanism; an on/off switch provided on an exterior of the housing and electrically coupled to the motor of the shredder mechanism, the switch including a manually engageable portion manually movable by a user's hand between at least (a) an on position wherein the switch enables delivery of electric power to the motor and (b) an off position disabling the delivery of electric power to the motor; a switch lock movable between (a) a locking position wherein the switch is locked in the off position and (b) a releasing position wherein the switch is released for movement from the off position; wherein the switch lock includes a manually engageable portion provided on the exterior of the housing, the manually engageable portion being manually movable by the user's hand to move the switch lock between the locking and releasing positions.