US Patent Issued to Ricoh on Jan. 28 for "Sheet stacker and image forming apparatus incorporating same" (Japanese Inventor)

ALEXANDRIA, Va., Jan. 29 -- United States Patent no. 12,208,981, issued on Jan. 28, was assigned to Ricoh Co. Ltd. (Tokyo).

"Sheet stacker and image forming apparatus incorporating same" was invented by Ikumi Kazama (Kanagawa, Japan).

According to the abstract* released by the U.S. Patent & Trademark Office: "A sheet stacker includes a tray to store a stack of sheets, a conveyor above the tray, a leading end guide above the tray, and an air exhaust. The conveyor conveys a sheet in a conveyance direction. The leading end guide is downstream from the conveyor in the conveyance direction. The leading end guide guides the sheet from the conveyor to the tray. The air exhaust exhausts air above an upper surface of the stack of sheets on the tra...