US Patent Issued to Ricoh on Oct. 21 for "Distance detector, sheet feeder, and image forming apparatus" (Japanese Inventor)

ALEXANDRIA, Va., Oct. 28 -- United States Patent no. 12,448,243, issued on Oct. 21, was assigned to Ricoh Co. Ltd. (Tokyo).

"Distance detector, sheet feeder, and image forming apparatus" was invented by Suguru Masunaga (Kanagawa, Japan).

According to the abstract* released by the U.S. Patent & Trademark Office: "A distance detector includes a distance-measuring sensor, a first detection surface, a second detection surface, and processing circuitry. The first detection surface is perpendicular to an optical axis of the distance-measuring sensor. The second detection surface is behind or in front of the first detection surface with respect to the distance-measuring sensor. The second detection surface has two faces inclined with respect to ...