ALEXANDRIA, Va., Sept. 10 -- United States Patent no. 12,411,450, issued on Sept. 9, was assigned to CANON K.K. (Tokyo).
"Image forming apparatus" was invented by Takao Nada (Shizuoka, Japan), Naoyuki Maeda (Shizuoka, Japan), Hiroshi Kawaguchi (Shizuoka, Japan) and Shuntaro Tezuka (Shizuoka, Japan).
According to the abstract* released by the U.S. Patent & Trademark Office: "An image forming apparatus includes a casing including a discharge port, an upper unit arranged above the casing, a first supporting member supporting the upper unit, and a second supporting member supporting the upper unit. The casing includes a first side plate, a second side plate, and a frame member arranged downstream of the discharge port in the sheet discharge d...