US Patent Issued to RICOH on Feb. 10 for "Head maintenance device, image forming apparatus, and head maintenance method" (Japanese Inventor)

ALEXANDRIA, Va., Feb. 11 -- United States Patent no. 12,545,029, issued on Feb. 10, was assigned to RICOH COMPANY LTD. (Tokyo).

"Head maintenance device, image forming apparatus, and head maintenance method" was invented by Kenta Takahashi (Kanagawa, Japan).

According to the abstract* released by the U.S. Patent & Trademark Office: "Ahead maintenance device includes a cap and circuitry. The cap is detachably attachable to a nozzle surface of a head to cover the nozzle surface having a nozzle. The circuitry causes the cap to contact the nozzle surface of the head to form a space between the nozzle surface and the cap filled with a cleaning liquid, and applies a drive waveform to a piezoelectric element of the head to apply vibration to the...