US Patent Issued to Ricoh on Dec. 2 for "Heating device including a lubricant holding region, a fixing device including the same, and an image forming apparatus including the same" (Japanese Inventors)

ALEXANDRIA, Va., Dec. 2 -- United States Patent no. 12,487,545, issued on Dec. 2, was assigned to Ricoh Co. Ltd. (Tokyo).

"Heating device including a lubricant holding region, a fixing device including the same, and an image forming apparatus including the same" was invented by Tomoya Adachi (Kanagawa, Japan), Yuusuke Furuichi (Kanagawa, Japan) and Yukimichi Someya (Saitama, Japan).

According to the abstract* released by the U.S. Patent & Trademark Office: "A heating device includes a rotator, a pressure rotator, a heater, a holder, and lubricant. The heater inside the rotator forms a sliding nip between the rotator and the heater. The heater includes a resistive heat generator inside the sliding nip. The lubricant is applied to the inner...