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. 14, 2014
Filed:
Mar. 05, 2012
Masaki Tsugawa, Kanagawa, JP;
Masatoshi Inoue, Kanagawa, JP;
Masaki Tsugawa, Kanagawa, JP;
Masatoshi Inoue, Kanagawa, JP;
Ricoh Company, Limited, Tokyo, JP;
Abstract
An image forming apparatus includes a control unit that controls each component, a first storage unit that is a non-volatile and rewritable storage unit mounted on the control unit, a toner containing unit that contains toner to be used for an image forming, a second storage unit that is a non-volatile and rewritable storage unit mounted on the toner containing unit, and a detecting unit that detects an amount of the toner remained in the toner containing unit. The control unit stores count information into the second storage unit, the count information is copied from the second storage unit to the first storage unit, when the detecting unit detects that the amount of the toner remained in the toner containing unit is not enough, and the count information is kept on being stored into the first storage unit, until the toner containing unit is replaced with a new one.