Patent ID: 7419154

Claim:
A feeder device for feeding a media unit from a stack of media units to a receiving apparatus, each media unit having a thickness, said feeder device comprising: a drive mechanism adapted to drive a media unit from the stack of media units in a feed direction; a gate apparatus defining an opening having a height and being aligned with the drive mechanism such that the drive mechanism feeds the driven media unit in the feed direction through the opening; a flexible blade member fixedly engaged with the gate apparatus at a fixed end and cantilevered with respect to the gate apparatus so as to define a free end extending toward the drive mechanism, the blade member defining a length between the fixed end and the free end and extending from the fixed end so as to reduce the height of the opening, the blade member being further configured such that the flexibility thereof is adjustable, whereby the flexibility of the blade member is adjusted in correspondence with the thickness of the driven media unit being fed to the receiving apparatus; and a biased member disposed opposite the driven media unit from the drive mechanism and upstream of the blade member with respect to the feed direction, the biased member being configured to bias the driven media unit against the drive mechanism, as the driven media unit is fed therebetween in the feed direction, so as to separate the driven media unit from other media units within the stack and to increase a driving force on the driven media unit fed toward the blade member; wherein the biased member and the flexibility of the blade member are linked such that the flexibility of the blade member adjusts in response to a displacement of the biased member.