US Patent Issued to Canon on July 1 for "Image forming apparatus with improved uniformity of heat at the nip of its fixing device" (Japanese Inventor)

ALEXANDRIA, Va., July 3 -- United States Patent no. 12,346,044, issued on July 1, was assigned to Canon K.K. (Tokyo).

"Image forming apparatus with improved uniformity of heat at the nip of its fixing device" was invented by Ryo Suzuki (Chiba, Japan).

According to the abstract* released by the U.S. Patent & Trademark Office: "An image forming apparatus includes a fixing portion including a fixing nip for fixing a toner image on a sheet. A controller executes image formation on a first sheet and a second sheet of which size in a widthwise direction is larger than that of the first sheet. The controller changes a time from when a trailing end of the sheet has passed through the fixing nip until when a following sheet reaches the fixing nip....