WILLIAM JOSEPH TORTORA
Pilots at Fisher Hl Rd, W Willington, CT

6493018, Dec 10, 2002

Apr 8, 1999

09/288424

Charles M. Hevenor - Glastonbury CT
William J. Tortora - Willington CT
William A. Loos - Broad Brook CT
Kenneth O. Wood - Longmont CO
Edward M. Oscarson - New Hartford CT
David M. Mindek - Ashford CT
Kurt J. Ehrhardt - Enfield CT
John K. White - Vernon CT
Raymond J. MacQueen - New Hartford CT
Brian H. Lis - West Hartford CT
Roy Douglas Downey - Higganum CT
Michael J. Banavige - Coventry CT
Daniel G. Binnall - Simsbury CT

Gerber Scientific Products, Inc. - South Windsor CT

B41J 2325

347217

Disclosed are the following: a wide format thermal printer for printing a multicolor graphic product on a printing sheet; a vacuum workbed for supporting a sheet material for performing work operations, such as cutting, printing or plotting, thereon; a replaceable donor sheet assembly, which includes a memory, for use with a thermal printer; methods and apparatus for improved thermal printing, including methods and apparatus for conserving donor sheet and reducing the amount of time required to print a multicolor graphic product; a thermal printhead including a memory; and methods and apparatus for the alignment of a sheet material for printing or performing other work operations on the sheet material. The wide format thermal printer can include provision for the automatic loading of cassettes of donor sheet from a cassette storage rack. The vacuum workbed can include provision for determining the size of the sheet material supported by the workbed, and for controlling the suction applied to the apertures in a worksurface of the workbed.

6603497, Aug 5, 2003

Nov 30, 2000

09/726293

Charles M. Hevenor - Glastonbury CT
Howard H. Plude - Avon CT
William J. Tortora - Willington CT
Edward M. Oscarson - New Hartford CT
Kenneth O. Wood - Longmont CO

Gerber Scientific Products, Inc. - South Windsor CT

G01D 1516

347217

A wide format thermal printer for printing a multicolor graphic product on a printing sheet; a vacuum workbed for supporting a sheet material for performing work operations, such as cutting, printing or plotting, thereon; a replaceable donor sheet assembly, which includes a memory, for use with a thermal printer; methods and apparatus for improved thermal printing, including methods and apparatus for conserving donor sheet and reducing the amount of time required to print a multicolor graphic product; a thermal printhead including a memory; methods and apparatus for the alignment of a sheet material for printing or performing other work operations on the sheet material; and methods and apparatus for controlling the tension of the donor sheet during printing with a wide format thermal printer. The wide format thermal printer can include provision for the automatic loading of cassettes of donor sheet from a cassette storage rack. The vacuum workbed can include provision for determining the size of the sheet material supported by the workbed, and for controlling the suction applied to the apparatus in a worksurface of the workbed.

6573923, Jun 3, 2003

Apr 12, 2001

09/833936

Charles M. Hevenor - Glastonbury CT
William J. Tortora - Willington CT
William A. Loos - Broad Brook CT
Kenneth O. Wood - Longmont CO
Edward M. Oscarson - New Hartford CT
David M. Mindek - Ashford CT
Kurt J. Ehrhardt - Enfield CT
John K. White - Vernon CT
Raymond J. MacQueen - New Hartford CT
Brian H. Lis - West Hartford CT
Roy Douglas Downey - Higganum CT
Michael J. Banavige - Coventry CT
Daniel G. Binnall - Simsbury CT

Gerber Scientific Products, Inc. - South Windsor CT

G01D 1516

347215

Disclosed are the following: a wide format thermal printer for printing a multicolor graphic product on a printing sheet; a vacuum workbed for supporting a sheet material for performing work operations, such as cutting, printing or plotting, thereon; a replaceable donor sheet assembly, which includes a memory, for use with a thermal printer; methods and apparatus for improved thermal printing, including methods and apparatus for conserving donor sheet and reducing the amount of time required to print a multicolor graphic product; a thermal printhead including a memory; and methods and apparatus for the alignment of a sheet material for printing or performing other work operations on the sheet material. The wide format thermal printer can include provision for the automatic loading of cassettes of donor sheet from a cassette storage rack. The vacuum workbed can include provision for determining the size of the sheet material supported by the workbed, and for controlling the suction applied to the apertures in a worksurface of the workbed.

6243120, Jun 5, 2001

Apr 8, 1999

9/288361

Charles M. Hevenor - Glastonbury CT
Howard H. Plude - Avon CT
William J. Tortora - Willington CT
Edward M. Oscarson - New Hartford CT
Kenneth O. Wood - Longmont CO

Gerber Scientific Products, Inc. - Manchester CT

B41J 1728

347217

Disclosed are the following: a wide format thermal printer for printing a multicolor graphic product on a printing sheet; a vacuum workbed for supporting a sheet material for performing work operations, such as cutting, printing or plotting, thereon; a replaceable donor sheet assembly, which includes a memory, for use with a thermal printer; methods and apparatus for improved thermal printing, including methods and apparatus for conserving donor sheet and reducing the amount of time required to print a multicolor graphic product; a thermal printhead including a memory; and methods and apparatus for the alignment of a sheet material for printing or performing other work operations on the sheet material. The wide format thermal printer can include provision for the automatic loading of cassettes of donor sheet from a cassette storage rack. The vacuum workbed can include provision for determining the size of the sheet material supported by the workbed, and for controlling the suction applied to the apertures in a worksurface of the workbed.

5768789, Jun 23, 1998

Jun 20, 1996

8/666248

William J. Tortora - Willington CT
Thomas A. Gordon - S. Glastonbury CT

Gerber Scientific Products, Inc. - Manchester CT

B43L 1300

33 181

A vertically looped ribbon cable having upper and lower lengths connected to one another by a 180. degree. bend for carrying power and control signals is attached at one end to a controller and at its other end to a plotter's tool head. The tool head is mounted to, and can move along the length of a tool head support. A cable support device is provided and includes a trough having an interior channel containing the ribbon cable and mounted to the plotter's frame. A vertically looped cable support strip is also positioned in the trough and has an upper support strip length positioned above and connected by a 180. degree. bend in the support strip to a lower support strip length. During movement of the tool head along the length of the support, one of the upper or lower support strip lengths will increase while the other decreases. The ribbon cable is positioned relative to the support strip so that the upper length of the cable overlies and is vertically supported by the upper support strip length.

5765481, Jun 16, 1998

Mar 11, 1997

8/814964

William J. Tortora - Willington CT
Jessica Dworak - Cromwell CT

Gerber Scientific Products, Inc. - Manchester CT

B41M 114

101211

A length of web material is worked by a number of individual work units each of which performs a work function on the material to progressively achieve an end result, the work units being arranged serially along an X coordinate direction extending lengthwise of the web material and the web material being moved unidirectionally by each work unit. Accumulators are provided between adjacent ones of the work units and one or both of the work units located immediately on opposite sides of an accumulator are controlled in response to the amount of slack web material contained in the accumulator, as by stopping the feeding of the web material by the upstream one of the work units when the accumulated slack material exceeds a given amount and/or by stopping the feeding of the web material by the downstream one of the work units when the amount of accumulated material falls below a given amount. The work units may be a number of printers for printing end graphics onto the web material and a following cutting mechanism for cutting the end graphics from the web material. The end graphics may be multi-colored ones with each printer printing a color separate portion of the end graphics.

5727887, Mar 17, 1998

Apr 8, 1996

8/629362

Ronald B. Webster - Ellington CT
Daniel J. Sullivan - Hartford CT
William J. Tortora - West Willington CT
Joseph W. Stempien - Newington CT
Dwight Curry - Vernon CT
David P. Boisvert - Southington CT

Gerber Scientific Products, Inc. - Manchester CT

B41J 3528

400208

A machine and method of performing a work operation requiring a known or predetermined length of unconsumed web has a cassette containing consumable web material, and the cassette has an indicator for identifying a length of unconsumed web in the cassette. The length of unconsumed web in the cassette is compared to a known or predetermined length of unconsumed web required to perform the work operation, and the operation is performed if the length of unconsumed web in the cassette is at least equal to the required length of unconsumed web. In one embodiment, the indicator takes the form of a potentiometer mounted on an exterior surface of the cassette for electrically indicating the amount of unconsumed web, or a pointer carried by a worm gear rotatably coupled to a spool of the cassette, wherein the pointer moves relative to indicia on the cassette upon rotation of the spool to visually indicate the amount of unconsumed web in the cassette.

5810494, Sep 22, 1998

Sep 6, 1996

8/709261

Alan W. Menard - Bolton CT
Robert V. DeMartino - West Hartford CT
John E. Markowski - Berlin CT
Nabil Mishriki - Portland CT
Ronald G. Goulet - Hebron CT
William J. Tortora - Willington CT

Gerber Systems Corporation - South Windsor CT

B41J 1500

400634

An apparatus for printing, cutting or otherwise working sheets of sheet material has a friction sheet advance mechanism and a sheet loading mechanism in advance of the feed mechanism having rows of sprocket pins cooperating with complementary rows of sprocket holes in a sheet to assure accurate insertion of a sheet into the sheet advance mechanism and subsequent accurate movement of the sheet through the advance mechanism and past a work station. A photosensor carried by the work head of the apparatus senses one side edge of the sheet as a reference for laterally positioning the work process relative to the sheet, and a transversely extending index edge of an index hole in the proof sheet is detected and used as a reference for the longitudinal positioning of the work process relative to the sheet. When working on both faces of the sheet, the same reference edges are detected and used as references for the work process on the second face as are detected and used as references for the work process on the first face so as to avoid registration errors between the two work processes.