ALEXANDRIA, Va., July 3 -- United States Patent no. 12,346,054, issued on July 1, was assigned to BROTHER KOGYO K.K. (Nagoya, Japan).
"Image forming apparatus" was invented by Shougo Sato (Seto, Japan).
According to the abstract* released by the U.S. Patent & Trademark Office: "An image forming apparatus includes a photosensitive drum, a developing device, a toner container, a cleaner, a waste toner container, and a waste toner conveying pipe. The cleaner is configured to clean a peripheral surface of the photosensitive drum after a toner image has been transferred to the printing medium. The waste toner container is configured to accommodate therein waste toner removed from the peripheral surface of the photosensitive drum by the cleaner...