US Patent Issued to Ricoh on Aug. 18 for "Image forming apparatus to selectively supply air to stations including image forming units" (Japanese Inventors)

ALEXANDRIA, Va., Aug. 18 -- United States Patent no. 12,710,723, issued on Aug. 18, was assigned to Ricoh Co. Ltd. (Tokyo).

"Image forming apparatus to selectively supply air to stations including image forming units" was invented by Taisuke Ishikawa (Kanagawa, Japan), Shoji Asanuma (Kanagawa, Japan) and Tatsuya Suzuki (Kanagawa, Japan).

According to the abstract* released by the U.S. Patent & Trademark Office: "An image forming apparatus includes a plurality of image forming units, a plurality of stations, a plurality of air supply ports, and an air supply duct. When image formation is performed in a full specification state in which all of the image forming units are installed in the stations, air is supplied from all of the air supply ...