ALEXANDRIA, Va., July 15 -- United States Patent no. 12,661,912, issued on June 23, was assigned to Toshiba Tec K.K. (Tokyo).
"Image forming apparatus" was invented by Norio Tanaka (Numazu Shizuoka, Japan).
According to the abstract* released by the U.S. Patent & Trademark Office: "An image forming apparatus includes a head configured to transfer ink from an ink ribbon to a print medium, a roller for pressing the print medium, and a controller configured to: upon receipt of print data, determine image areas in which an image is formed and non-image areas in which no image is formed, at the beginning of printing, control a distance between the head and the roller such that they contact each other, and set conveyance speeds of the medium an...