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US 6,661,537 B1Granted
Optical scanner with inclined platen
AssigneeHewlett-Packard Development Company, L.P.
InventorModest Khovaylo
Life of this patent
Estimating the term…
Abstract
An optical scanner including a housing having a top portion, a bottom portion, a front portion and a rear portion; a platen member forming a portion of the housing top portion, the platen member having a flat upper surface defining a platen plane; a scanner base provided on the housing bottom portion and defining a base plane; the platen plane being inclined relative to the base plane.
Claims13
A flatbed optical scanner comprising:
- a housing having a top portion, a bottom portion, a front portion and a rear portion;
- a single platen member forming a portion of said housing top portion, said platen member having a unitary, flat, upper, object-to-be-scanned support surface defining a unitary platen plane and having a edge portion positioned proximate said rear portion of said housing and a front edge positioned proximate said front portion of said housing and opposite lateral side edges and wherein the distance between said rear and front edges is greater than the distance between said opposite lateral side edges;
- a scanner base being provided on said housing bottom portion and defining a base plane, said platen plane being inclined downwardly and forwardly relative said base plane;
- and
- a scanner cover member having a hinge axis, said hinge axis being positioned at said rear portion of said housing a scanner carriage mounted within said housing and being forwardly and rearwardly displaceable below said platen member along an inclined path parallel to said inclined platen plane, and a drive motor drivingly connected to said scanner carriage and mounted with in said housing forwardly of said hinge axis and rearwardly of said platen rear edge.
2 more elements
A method of scanning a document comprising:
- placing a document in a planar position on a rectangular platen having a pair of opposed relatively longer edges and a pair of opposed relatively shorter edges which extend perpendicular to a cover hinge axis and with a first edge portion of the document remote from a cover hinge axis and below a horizontal plane and an opposite second edge portion proximate the cover hinge axis and above the horizontal plane;
- and
- moving a light source below the document on an inclined path parallel to said platen and extending in the same direction as said opposed relatively longer edges of said platen with a scanner motor positioned between the platen member and the hinge axis.
Dependencies are inferred from the claim text.