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:
Oct. 30, 2001
Filed:
Dec. 03, 1999
Canon Kabushiki Kaisha, Tokyo, JP;
Abstract
An electrophotographic image forming apparatus includes an image-bearing member for bearing a toner image thereon, a transfer device for transferring the toner image from the image-bearing member to a recording medium at a transfer position, a drive mechanism for moving the image-bearing member, and a cleaning blade abutted against the image-bearing member for removing a transfer residual toner remaining on the image-bearing member after the transfer of the toner image to the recording medium in accordance with the movement of the image-bearing member. The image forming apparatus is operated effectively for a long period by cleaning the image-bearing member according to a method wherein cleaning aid particles having a volume-average particle size of 0.1-3 &mgr;m smaller than that of the toner are caused to be resident in a width of 50-100 &mgr;m along an upstream side of the cleaning blade with respect to the moving direction of the image-bearing member.