ALEXANDRIA, Va., Aug. 20 -- United States Patent no. 12,393,135, issued on Aug. 19, was assigned to Canon K.K. (Tokyo).
"Image forming apparatus" was invented by Norihiro Shirahata (Tokyo), Shuhei Tokiwa (Tokyo) and Satoru Motohashi (Chiba, Japan).
According to the abstract* released by the U.S. Patent & Trademark Office: "Provided is an image forming apparatus that can execute a first operation to move developer from a surface of a charging member to a surface of an image bearing member, and a second operation to supply developer to a cleaning portion, wherein a region of the surface of the image bearing member to which the developer is supplied in the second operation includes a region where a second potential difference is generated, s...