US Patent Issued to TOSHIBA TEC on Oct. 21 for "Image forming apparatus having service summons control and corresponding method" (Japanese Inventor)

ALEXANDRIA, Va., Oct. 28 -- United States Patent no. 12,449,751, issued on Oct. 21, was assigned to TOSHIBA TEC K.K. (Tokyo).

"Image forming apparatus having service summons control and corresponding method" was invented by Takao Izumi (Yokohama Kanagawa, Japan).

According to the abstract* released by the U.S. Patent & Trademark Office: "According to one embodiment, an image forming apparatus includes a printing unit, a count unit, and a control unit. The printing unit includes a member, the self-maintenance of which is performable by a user, and prints an image on a printing medium. The count unit counts a count value indicating usage time of the member. The control unit outputs, when determining that the count value counted by the count...