ALEXANDRIA, Va., July 16 -- United States Patent no. 12,358,300, issued on July 15, was assigned to KONICA MINOLTA INC. (Tokyo).
"Image forming apparatus" was invented by Hiroyuki Tokimatsu (Hino, Japan).
According to the abstract* released by the U.S. Patent & Trademark Office: "An image forming apparatus includes: a main tank that stores ink; an ink head unit that includes a first heating device to heat the ink and that ejects the heated ink; a supply channel that supplies the ink from the main tank to the ink head unit; and a second heating device that heats the supply channel. The second heating device starts heating at a predetermined timing such that a temperature of a specific region in the supply channel becomes equal to or more t...