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:
Jan. 01, 2013
Filed:
Mar. 09, 2010
Satoru Shibuya, Chiryu, JP;
Hidetoshi Noguchi, Tahara, JP;
Kazuyoshi Hara, Itami, JP;
Konica Minolta Business Technologies, Inc., Tokyo, JP;
Abstract
An image forming apparatus comprises: a rotatable image carrier operable to carry a toner image on a surface thereof; a transfer part operable to electrostatically transfer the toner image carried on the surface of the image carrier, onto a transfer material; a cleaning member that is in contact with the surface of the image carrier and that is operable to clean toner remaining on the surface of the image carrier after transfer by the transfer part; and a voltage supplier operable to apply, to the cleaning member, a bias voltage that is for cleaning the surface of the image carrier and that has a polarity opposite to a normal charging polarity of the toner. Here, application of the bias voltage by the voltage supplier starts before rotation of the image carrier starts, and when Vr>0, 0<Vc<Vr, and when Vr<0, Vr<Vc<0, where Vc is a value of the bias voltage from a start of the application until a start of the rotation, and Vr is a reference value which is a value of the bias voltage from the start of the rotation onward.