ALEXANDRIA, Va., June 6 -- United States Patent no. 12,282,276, issued on April 22, was assigned to RICOH COMPANY LTD. (Tokyo).
"Image forming method and image forming apparatus" was invented by Yohhei Watanabe (Kanagawa, Japan), Kenji Ishii (Kanagawa, Japan) and Kaori Hemmi (Kanagawa, Japan).
According to the abstract* released by the U.S. Patent & Trademark Office: "An image forming method to be performed by an image forming apparatus includes forming, transferring, fixing, and drying. The forming forms a foil portion to which foil is adhered on one surface of a recording medium. The transferring transfers an image to the one surface of the recording medium after the forming of the foil portion. The fixing fixes the image transferred to...