ALEXANDRIA, Va., Sept. 15 -- United States Patent no. 12,736,904, issued on Sept. 15, was assigned to FUJIFILM Business Innovation Corp. (Tokyo).

"Sliding member containing talc particles, image fixing device, and image forming apparatus" was invented by Taiki Nagamatsu (Kanagawa, Japan), Ryohei Yoshikawa (Kanagawa, Japan), Hideaki Ohara (Kanagawa, Japan), Kenji Kajiwara (Kanagawa, Japan), Tomotake Inagaki (Kanagawa, Japan) and Hitoshi Komuro (Kanagawa, Japan).

According to the abstract* released by the U.S. Patent & Trademark Office: "A sliding member includes a sliding layer that contains a heat-resistant thermoplastic resin other than a fluororesin and tale particles, in which the tale particles are exposed on a sliding surface, and an...