Konica Minolta (KNCAY) USPTO patentsUtility grant

A waste toner container provided for use in an image forming apparatus includes: a body receiving, through an inlet, waste toner discharged from the image forming apparatus, and contains the waste toner; a conveyance member conveying the waste toner, which has been received through the inlet; a waste toner deposition chamber disposed downstream of the inlet in a waste toner conveyance direction such that the waste toner that has been conveyed is increasingly deposited therein, the chamber having a light-transmissive window through which amount of the deposited waste toner is optically monitorable from outside of the body; a conductive member disposed on an inner surface of the body so as to come into contact with the waste toner being conveyed; and a connection unit disposed between the conductive member and an earth member provided in the image forming apparatus to electrically connect between the conductive member and the earth member.

An image forming system comprises: an application server installed on an internet; multiple image forming devices installed on a local network; multiple relay servers, installed on the local network, relaying communication between at least one of the multiple image forming devices and the application server; and a connection mediation server, installed on the internet, sending an access request to one of the multiple relay servers, and connecting the relay server to the application server.

A radiation image capturing system includes the following.

A radiographic imaging apparatus includes an imaging apparatus and a hardware processor.

An inkjet recording apparatus and an inkjet recording method which enable changing a droplet amount without changing a droplet speed of an ink discharged from the same nozzle, and including an inkjet head which expands and contracts a capacity of a pressure chamber by applying a driving signal to an actuator and a driving circuit which applies the driving signal to the actuator, the driving signal including a first expansion pulse which starts from a reference potential and expands the capacity of the pressure chamber, a first contraction pulse which contracts the capacity of the pressure chamber to discharge the ink from the nozzle, a second expansion pulse which expands the capacity of the pressure chamber, and a second contraction pulse which contracts the capacity of the pressure chamber and returns to the reference potential in the mentioned order, the driving circuit being configured to enable discharging different droplet amounts of the ink from the same nozzle by changing a potential difference between a start edge and an end edge of the first contraction pulse.

A drive apparatus according to the present invention includes a first motor that transmits power to a rotating shaft of a conveyance roller for conveying a sheet, a second motor that transmits power to the rotating shaft of the conveyance roller, a storage that stores information indicating the driving force of the second motor during a period in which the conveyance roller conveys the sheet; and a controller that drives the second motor with the driving force indicated by the information during a period when the conveyance roller conveys the sheet, wherein the controller changes the information stored in the storage according to a load applied to the conveyance roller during the period when the conveyance roller conveys the sheet, and drives the second motor with a driving force indicated by the information after the change during a period when the conveyance roller conveys a next sheet.

An antigen detection method detects an antigen having a specific sugar chain in a sample with a lectin that binds to plural kinds of sugar chains including the specific sugar chain.

An image forming apparatus includes: a photoconductor drum; a developing device having a plurality of developer rollers and supplying toner to the photoconductor drum; a first pressing force applier that applies a force to the developing device to press the plurality of developer rollers toward the photoconductor drum; and a second pressing force applier that flexibly holds the developing device in a vertical direction.

A method for manufacturing an intermediate transfer belt having at least a base layer and a surface layer formed in contact with a surface of the base layer, includes: irradiating a surface of the base layer with a laser such that Rz (in accordance with JIS-B0601-2001) is 0.2 μm or more and equal to or less than a half of a film thickness of a surface layer to be formed; and forming a surface layer on the surface of the base layer irradiated with the laser.

A toner supply device includes a pressing portion that presses a toner cartridge such that the toner cartridge is detached from a device body.

Provided is an image forming apparatus including a transfer mechanism which transfers a toner image formed on a photosensitive member onto a transfer receiving member, wherein the transfer mechanism includes a conductive member having resistance whose current-voltage characteristic changes by energization, and the image forming apparatus further includes a detector which detects a resistance value when currents or voltages of two or more levels are switched from one to another and applied to the conductive member, and a hardware processor which computes a slope of the current-voltage characteristic from the resistance value detected by the detector and determines a deterioration state of the conductive member by the slope.

Provided is an image forming apparatus and a control program.

An image forming method includes: supplying a powder onto a recording medium; supplying a coated toner onto the powder on the recording medium; and fixing the powder to the recording medium by heating the coated toner supplied onto the powder and melting the coated toner.

A cleaning apparatus includes a cleaning unit, a leaf spring, a holding member, and a strain detection unit.

An image inspection apparatus includes: an image area signal generator that refers to information from an image forming apparatus to set lengths of turning on and off of a sub-scanning image area signal that determines turning on and off of reading, and generates the sub-scanning image area signal to indicate a start of image formation; a reader that reads an image; an inspector that compares a read image generated through reading with an expected-value image; and a controller that controls the image area signal generator, the reader, and the inspector, wherein, when a deviation equal to or greater than a predetermined threshold value is detected at positions of sub-scanning on corresponding images during the comparison, the controller adjusts an OFF period of the sub-scanning image area signal to eliminate a positional deviation of sub-scanning on the corresponding images between the read image and the expected-value image.

An object of the present invention is to provide an organic thin-film laminate capable of suppressing function reduction even when an intermediate layer is formed using a wet method.

There is provided an information processing apparatus enabled to share managed information that is managed and customizable for an individual user with a plurality of other information processing apparatuses, and the information processing apparatus includes a hardware processor that: acquires update information indicating that managed information of a specific user among a plurality of users has been updated by customization; determines some information processing apparatuses among the plurality of other information processing apparatuses, as distribution destination apparatuses to share updated managed information of the specific user, based on a use history of the specific user, after acquisition of the update information; and transmits the updated managed information to the some information processing apparatuses determined as the distribution destination apparatuses, after the acquisition of the update information.

An image forming apparatus includes: a hardware processor that: generates image data for composition; and divides the image data for composition into bands; an output memory; a storage that determines whether image data of each band coincides with image data of another band, secures a unique region, transfers the image data of the band to the unique region and associates the band with the unique region, secures common regions, transfers the image data of one of the bands to the common region and associates any one of the common regions to each of the bands; a reader that reads the image data from the region associated with each band and outputs the image data for composition; a composer that composes the image data for composition with the image data to be printed; and an image former that forms an image based on the composed image data.