US Patent Issued to RICOH on Feb. 3 for "Heating device, fixing device, and image forming apparatus" (Japanese Inventors)

ALEXANDRIA, Va., Feb. 3 -- United States Patent no. 12,541,163, issued on Feb. 3, was assigned to RICOH COMPANY LTD. (Tokyo).

"Heating device, fixing device, and image forming apparatus" was invented by Takayuki Andoh (Kanagawa, Japan), Masahiro Samei (Osaka, Japan), Kota Shiodera (Tokyo), Toshiyuki Kabata (Kanagawa, Japan), Hiroshi Yoshinaga (Chiba, Japan), Tomoyuki Nishikawa (Saitama, Japan), Yuusuke Furuichi (Kanagawa, Japan), Hiroyuki Shimada (Tokyo) and Arinobu Yoshiura (Kanagawa, Japan).

According to the abstract* released by the U.S. Patent & Trademark Office: "A heating device includes a rotator, a heater, lubricant applied to the rotator, a rotator support, and a cover. The rotator has an internal space inside a loop of the rotat...