ALEXANDRIA, Va., April 15 -- United States Patent no. 12,600,591, issued on April 14, was assigned to Ricoh Co. Ltd. (Tokyo).
"Sheet feeder and image forming apparatus" was invented by Nobuo Inoue (Kanagawa, Japan), Takeshi Iwasaki (Kanagawa, Japan), Katsumi Okada (Kanagawa, Japan) and Kenta Takizawa (Kanagawa, Japan).
According to the abstract* released by the U.S. Patent & Trademark Office: "A sheet feeder includes a support to support a roll sheet winding a sheet, a sensor that is at a first position on the support and contacts a surface of the roll sheet to detect a level difference at a trailing edge of the roll sheet and output a first signal and a second signal, a roller that is at a second position different from the first positio...