ALEXANDRIA, Va., Feb. 12 -- United States Patent no. 12,222,671, issued on Feb. 11, was assigned to RICOH COMPANY LTD. (Tokyo).
"Image forming apparatus" was invented by Hiroaki Nieda (Kanagawa, Japan) and Naoki Matsuda (Kanagawa, Japan).
According to the abstract* released by the U.S. Patent & Trademark Office: "An image forming apparatus includes a unit, a housing, an outer cover, a lock, a detector, and circuitry. The unit is disposed in the image forming apparatus. The housing stores a toner bottle and has an insertion opening and an inner cover openably closable the insertion opening. The outer cover is openably closable to expose the inner cover and the unit or cover the inner cover and the unit. The lock locks the inner cover at a ...