US Patent Issued to Sharp on Sept. 8 for "Image forming device" (Japanese Inventor)

ALEXANDRIA, Va., Sept. 8 -- United States Patent no. 12,730,394, issued on Sept. 8, was assigned to Sharp K.K. (Sakai City, Japan).

"Image forming device" was invented by Tomoyuki Kawanishi (Sakai City, Japan).

According to the abstract* released by the U.S. Patent & Trademark Office: "An image forming device includes: a process unit that includes a photoreceptor drum and forms a toner image on the photoreceptor drum; an intermediate transfer belt having a surface onto which the toner image on the photoreceptor drum is intermediately transferred; an intermediate transfer roller whose position can be manually switched between a first position at which the surface of the intermediate transfer belt is brought into contact with the photorecep...