US Patent Issued to Toshiba Tec on March 31 for "Image forming apparatus and heating method" (Japanese Inventors)

ALEXANDRIA, Va., March 31 -- United States Patent no. 12,591,192, issued on March 31, was assigned to Toshiba Tec K.K. (Tokyo).

"Image forming apparatus and heating method" was invented by Kiyotaka Murakami (Mishima Shizuoka, Japan), Kazuhiko Kikuchi (Yokohama Kanagawa, Japan), Sasuke Endo (Chigasaki Kanagawa, Japan), Masaya Tanaka (Sunto Shizuoka, Japan), Ryota Saeki (Sunto Shizuoka, Japan), Kousei Miyashita (Sunto Shizuoka, Japan), Ryosuke Kojima (Sunto Shizuoka, Japan), Yohei Doi (Mishima Shizuoka, Japan), Yuki Kawashima (Tokyo) and Eiji Shinohara (Tagata Shizuoka, Japan).

According to the abstract* released by the U.S. Patent & Trademark Office: "A fixing unit or device that can be used in an image forming apparatus includes a first h...