ALEXANDRIA, Va., July 30 -- United States Patent no. 12,372,910, issued on July 29, was assigned to Canon K.K. (Tokyo).

"Image forming apparatus having sheet bonding apparatus" was invented by Shun Sato (Kanagawa, Japan) and Taku Watanabe (Shizuoka, Japan).

According to the abstract* released by the U.S. Patent & Trademark Office: "A sheet bonding apparatus includes an applying portion, a fixing portion, a folding portion, and a bonding portion including a heating member and a non-heating member which oppose to each other and which are for bonding the sheet by nipping the sheet therebetween. Two regions opposing to each other when the folding portion folds a sheet are a first region and a second region. In a case that when the bonding por...