ALEXANDRIA, Va., Nov. 3 -- United States Patent no. 12,780,578, issued on Nov. 3, was assigned to CANON K.K. (Tokyo).
"Sheet feeding apparatus and image forming apparatus" was invented by Kazuya Morohashi (Shizuoka, Japan) and Shutaro Kodama (Shizuoka, Japan).
According to the abstract* released by the U.S. Patent & Trademark Office: "In a sheet feeding apparatus, a recording material is stacked in a stacking unit, a sheet surface detection member takes on one of a first state, in which the sheet surface detection member displaces according to a height of a top surface of the material, and a second state. A detector detects the sheet surface detection member. A feeding unit is mounted in and removed from a main body. The feeding unit incl...