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US 6,125,996 Reading claim 1 of this patent, it claims that the device has 2 plates that are attached together by means of a shaft and that both halves must rotate mutually around "said shaft", yet one of the halves is pinned to "said shaft":

  1. A body transfer device, this device comprising a multiplicity of plates (Ai, Bi) each supporting a body and which are coupled one after another in an endless curvilinear mobile chain with articulations suitable to allow the curvilinearity of said mobile chain and simultaneously the rotation of the plates around a horizontal axis so as to turn the bodies over or set them upright, characterized in that the plates supporting the bodies are coupled in the following way:

    the plates are joined in successive pairs (Ai, Bi) and the two plates (Ai, Bi) of each pair are coupled by a horizontal shaft (13) allowing the mutual rotation of the two plates around said shaft to turn the bodies (9) over or set them upright and, each of the two above-mentioned plates (Ai, Bi respectively) of a pair is coupled to another immediately adjacent plate belonging to a neighboring pair (Bi-1 Ai+1 respectively) in an articulated way around at least one vertical axis of rotation suitable to allow their mutual inclination around said vertical axis.

So how can this happen if according to the pictures and descriptions, there's only one bearing and the half that is attached to the shaft is rigidly fixed TO the shaft? If looking at the prior art, it looks like this already exists in the prior art and what they actually claim is not what they actually disclose?

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I see a short pin (13) as the "shaft" of the claims and I do not see where either A sub i or B sub i is described as rigidly fixed to the shaft 13. – George White Jan 14 at 22:53

1 Answer

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To answer one the questions asked "how can something rotate around a shaft if is pinned to the shaft" - It can't.

But I think you are misreading the specification and drawings to find that one of the two plates is pinned to the shaft. Please see my comment above. Possibly you read "coupled by a shaft" as "coupled to a shaft". Even then, coupled is not pinned.

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The comment above was a comment on the earlier version of my answer. I did move that to a comment. I think this is an answer. – George White Jan 18 at 23:03
Agreed. Above comment deleted :) – m3lvn Jan 20 at 0:00

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