ALEXANDRIA, Va., June 12 -- United States Patent no. 12,298,696, issued on May 13, was assigned to CANON K.K. (Tokyo).
"Image forming apparatus" was invented by Takahiro Kawamoto (Kanagawa, Japan), Hideo Kihara (Kanagawa, Japan), Nobuo Oshima (Tokyo), Takashi Mukai (Kanagawa, Japan) and Takuya Kitamura (Kanagawa, Japan).
According to the abstract* released by the U.S. Patent & Trademark Office: "An image forming apparatus includes a moving unit to move a developing roller, a driving portion to be capable of rotating the developing roller in either case where the developing roller is located in a contact position in contact with a photosensitive drum or a separated position separated from the photosensitive drum, an acquiring portion to ac...