US Patent Issued to Ricoh on Sept. 16 for "Image forming apparatus" (Japanese Inventors)

ALEXANDRIA, Va., Sept. 17 -- United States Patent no. 12,416,894, issued on Sept. 16, was assigned to Ricoh Co. Ltd. (Tokyo).

"Image forming apparatus" was invented by Yutaka Goto (Kanagawa, Japan), Seiichi Kogure (Kanagawa, Japan), Hiroshi Kikuchi (Kanagawa, Japan), Hirotaka Hatta (Kanagawa, Japan), Hideki Kimura (Kanagawa, Japan), Yusuke Ishizuka (Kanagawa, Japan), Takuya Akiyama (Kanagawa, Japan) and Yuuki Aoki (Tokyo).

According to the abstract* released by the U.S. Patent & Trademark Office: "An image forming apparatus includes a toner image bearer, a transfer device, a cleaner, a bias power source, and circuitry. The toner image bearer bears a toner image. The transfer device performs a transfer process. The cleaner contacts the ton...