ALEXANDRIA, Va., April 7 -- United States Patent no. 12,596,318, issued on April 7, was assigned to Toshiba Tec K.K. (Tokyo).
"Image forming apparatus" was invented by Kiyotaka Murakami (Sunto Shizuoka, Japan).
According to the abstract* released by the U.S. Patent & Trademark Office: "In an embodiment, an image forming apparatus includes an image forming unit to form a toner image on a sheet and a fixing device to heat the toner image. The fixing device includes a cylindrical belt, a heater within the interior region to heat a region of the belt. A first and a second heat conduction member are also within the interior region. The heater is between the first heat conduction member and the belt, and also between the second heat conduction ...