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:
Jul. 18, 2006
Filed:
Jun. 10, 2004
Yoshimichi Ikeda, Hitachinaka, JP;
Yoshihiko Sano, Hitachinaka, JP;
Satoshi Ueda, Hitachinaka, JP;
Ricoh Printing Solutions, Ltd., Tokyo, JP;
Abstract
An electrophotographic apparatus is equipped with one or more printing sections including a photoreceptor, a charger that electrically charges the surface of the photoreceptor, an optical scanning section that optically scans the surface of the charged photoreceptor with a laser beam, a developer that develops image areas formed by optical scanning, a toner hopper that supplies toner to the developer, and an image transfer unit that transfers the developed image to a recording member. In this apparatus, the developer and toner hopper can be mounted and demounted separately and a plurality of toner hoppers and developers are changeable according to the kinds of toner colors to be used. Thus, of the developers and toner hoppers is equipped with a device that outputs electric signals to detect the correspondences of the toner hoppers and the developers.