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:
Sep. 28, 1999
Filed:
Oct. 28, 1997
Sharp Kabushiki Kaisha, Osaka, JP;
Abstract
A developing device has a development roller for carrying toner on a surface thereof, a toner supply roller for supplying the toner to the development roller, a flat spring which comes into contact with the development roller, charges the toner to be supplied to the development roller and applies the toner to the development roller while regulating the thickness of a layer of the toner. The flat spring has a plurality of flat-plate parts including a contact flat-plate part which comes into contact with the development roller, and a curved part which connects the flat-plate parts to each other. In this structure, by arbitrarily selecting dimensional parameters of the flat spring, it is possible to easily obtain various flat springs having different properties. Therefore, for example, the stress to the toner and the stress to the members can be easily reduced simultaneously with a design of the flat spring. Moreover, it is possible to improve the uniformity of the toner layer thickness in the axis direction of the development roller and the uniformity of charging of the toner.