ALEXANDRIA, Va., June 18 -- United States Patent no. 12,326,685, issued on June 10, was assigned to Canon K.K. (Tokyo).
"Image forming apparatus" was invented by Kenta Shibukawa (Shizuoka, Japan) and Go Shindo (Shizuoka, Japan).
According to the abstract* released by the U.S. Patent & Trademark Office: "An image forming apparatus includes an image bearing member, a developing device, a cleaning member, a collecting container having a discharge port for collecting a developer, and a control portion that can execute a supply mode in which a region of the image bearing member that is supplied with the developer from the developing device passes through the contact region with rotation of the image bearing member to allow the cleaning member ...