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. 06, 2009
Filed:
Oct. 16, 2006
Tomofumi Inoue, Osaka, JP;
Takafumi Miyazaki, Osaka, JP;
Tomoya Adachi, Osaka, JP;
Takeshi Sakashita, Osaka, JP;
Yuuji Meguro, Hyogo, JP;
Takeru Muramatsu, Osaka, JP;
Kohji Hatayama, Osaka, JP;
Tomofumi Inoue, Osaka, JP;
Takafumi Miyazaki, Osaka, JP;
Tomoya Adachi, Osaka, JP;
Takeshi Sakashita, Osaka, JP;
Yuuji Meguro, Hyogo, JP;
Takeru Muramatsu, Osaka, JP;
Kohji Hatayama, Osaka, JP;
Ricoh Company, Ltd., Tokyo, JP;
Abstract
A dust container includes a container body, an inlet, a dust detector, and a dust-conveying unit. The dust-conveying unit conveys the dust from the inlet to the interior of the container body. The dust-conveying unit includes a plurality of conveying members that are arranged at different positions in the dust conveying unit. A direction in which the dust is conveyed and an amount of the dust conveyed by at least one of the conveying members is different from those of the other conveying members. As the dust accumulates in the container body, the dust detector detects whether the container body is substantially full with the dust.