The patent badge is an abbreviated version of the USPTO patent document. The patent badge does contain a link to the full patent document.
The patent badge is an abbreviated version of the USPTO patent document. The patent badge covers the following: Patent number, Date patent was issued, Date patent was filed, Title of the patent, Applicant, Inventor, Assignee, Attorney firm, Primary examiner, Assistant examiner, CPCs, and Abstract. The patent badge does contain a link to the full patent document (in Adobe Acrobat format, aka pdf). To download or print any patent click here.
Patent No.:
Date of Patent:
Feb. 02, 1999
Filed:
Jan. 29, 1998
Stephen L Testardi, Boise, ID (US);
R Scott Johnson, Nampa, ID (US);
Hewlett-Packard Company, Palo Alto, CA (US);
Abstract
A system for automatically cleaning toner build-up on a roller, such as the fuser pressure roller in an electrophotographic printing device, using the duplexing capability of the device. One embodiment is a method for cleaning a roller in an image forming device. The method includes the steps of: feeding a sheet of print media into the simplex paper path; printing a cleaning pattern on one side of the sheet; routing the sheet through the duplex paper path to invert the sheet; and routing the inverted sheet back through the simplex paper path. When the image forming device includes a fuser, such as with a laser printer, a toner image cleaning pattern is applied to the paper or other sheet media, the toner is fused to the paper, the paper is then routed through a duplexer and back through the fuser. When the cleaning page is fed into the image forming device the second time, it goes through the device with the printed side down. As it passes through the fuser, the toner that makes up the cleaning pattern becomes tacky. The tacky toner cleans the pressure roller as the roller comes in contact with the printed side of the page.