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:
Apr. 06, 2010
Filed:
Jun. 08, 2007
Applicant:
Nobuo Kikuchi, Tokyo, JP;
Inventor:
Nobuo Kikuchi, Tokyo, JP;
Assignee:
Ricoh Company, Ltd., Tokyo, JP;
Primary Examiner:
Int. Cl.
CPC ...
G03G 15/02 (2006.01);
U.S. Cl.
CPC ...
Abstract
Toner having spindle-shaped particles is used to form images in an image forming apparatus. Each spindle-shaped particle has a ratio of a length in a minor axis to a length in a major axis in a range from 0.5 to 0.8 and a ratio of a thickness to the length in the minor axis in a range from 0.7 to 1.0. A charging device applies an electric charge onto an electrostatic latent-image carrier of the image forming apparatus. The charging device includes a charging roller, a surface roughness of which is equal to or smaller than 10 micrometers.