Patent 7303522 was granted and assigned to Komori on December, 2007 by the United States Patent and Trademark Office.
A parallel folding device includes: a folding cylinder which transfers a signature; a first jaw cylinder having gripper boards; an upper second jaw cylinder in contact with the first jaw cylinder and having grippers; a lower second jaw cylinder in contact with and the first jaw cylinder and having grippers; and a cam mechanism, which switches delivery channels between a channel in which the signature is transferred from the gripper boards of the first jaw cylinder to only the grippers of any one of the upper and lower second jaw cylinders, and in which the signature is transferred to the grippers of the upper second jaw cylinder and the grippers of the lower second jaw cylinder; and a channel which concurrently performs the changing of phases for causing the respective gripper boards to operate, from the first jaw cylinder to the upper second jaw cylinder and/or the lower jaw cylinder.