Patents by Inventor Sunao Ikeda
Sunao Ikeda has filed for patents to protect the following inventions. This listing includes patent applications that are pending as well as patents that have already been granted by the United States Patent and Trademark Office (USPTO).
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Patent number: 6289195Abstract: A developer replenishing device for replenishing a developing device with a developer, and a developer container for use therewith. The developer container, or toner bottle, has a mouth portion at one end thereof which is smaller in diameter than a hollow cylindrical main body. At the end of the bottle provided with the mouth portion, a shoulder has the inner periphery thereof partly raised to the edge of the mouth portion to form a raised portion for scooping up a toner. In addition, a part of the inner periphery of the circumferental wall of the bottle, which is contiguous with the raised portion, is also raised toward the axis of the bottle, about which the bottle is rotatable, thereby forming another raised portion. When the bottle is mounted on a bottle holder, which is included in the replienishing device, substantially horizontally with the mouth portion oriented sideways, the bottle is rotated to raise the toner from the bottom of the main body to the mouth portion.Type: GrantFiled: April 14, 2000Date of Patent: September 11, 2001Assignee: Ricoh Company, Ltd.Inventors: Hideo Ichikawa, Takeshi Saito, Sunao Ikeda, Nobuhiro Makita, Seiji Ozawa, Shigeru Yoshiki, Takaaki Yanagisawa
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Patent number: 6075963Abstract: A developer replenishing device for replenishing a developing device with a developer, and a developer container for use therewith. The developer container, or toner bottle, has a mouth portion at one end thereof which is smaller in diameter than a hollow cylindrical main body. At the end of the bottle provided with the mouth, a shoulder has the inner periphery thereof partly raised to the edge of the mouth portion to form a raised portion for scooping up a toner. In addition, a part of the inner periphery of the circumferential wall of the bottle which is contiguous with the raised portion is also raised toward the axis of the bottle about which the bottle is rotatable, thereby forming another raised portion. When the bottle is mounted to a bottle holder, which is included in the replenishing device, substantially horizontally with the mouth portion oriented sideways, the bottle is rotated to raise the toner from the bottom of the main body to the mouth portion.Type: GrantFiled: May 6, 1999Date of Patent: June 13, 2000Assignee: Ricoh Company, Ltd.Inventors: Hideo Ichikawa, Takeshi Saito, Sunao Ikeda, Nobuhiro Makita, Seiji Ozawa, Shigeru Yoshiki, Takaaki Yanagisawa
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Patent number: 5918090Abstract: A developer replenishing device for replenishing a developing device with a developer, and a developer container for use therewith. The developer container, or toner bottle, has a mouth portion at one end thereof which is smaller in diameter than a hollow cylindrical main body. At the end of the bottle provided with the mouth, a shoulder has the inner periphery thereof partly raised to the edge of the mouth portion to form a raised portion for scooping up a toner. In addition, a part of the inner periphery of the circumferential wall of the bottle which is contiguous with the raised portion is also raised toward the axis of the bottle about which the bottle is rotatable, thereby forming another raised portion. When the bottle is mounted to a bottle holder, which is included in the replenishing device, substantially horizontally with the mouth portion oriented sideways, the bottle is rotated to raise the toner from the bottom of the main body to the mouth portion.Type: GrantFiled: September 28, 1998Date of Patent: June 29, 1999Assignee: Ricoh Company, Ltd.Inventors: Hideo Ichikawa, Takeshi Saito, Sunao Ikeda, Nobuhiro Makita, Seiji Ozawa, Shigeru Yoshiki, Takaaki Yanagisawa
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Patent number: 5822663Abstract: A developer replenishing device for replenishing a developing device with a developer, and a developer container for use therewith. The developer container, or toner bottle, has a mouth portion at one end thereof which is smaller in diameter than a hollow cylindrical main body. At the end of the bottle provided with the mouth, a shoulder has the inner periphery thereof partly raised to the edge of the mouth portion to form a raised portion for scooping up a toner. In addition, a part of the inner periphery of the circumferential wall of the bottle which is contiguous with the raised portion is also raised toward the axis of the bottle about which the bottle is rotatable, thereby forming another raised portion. When the bottle is mounted to a bottle holder, which is included in the replenishing device, substantially horizontally with the mouth portion oriented sideways, the bottle is rotated to raise the toner from the bottom of the main body to the mouth portion.Type: GrantFiled: November 18, 1996Date of Patent: October 13, 1998Assignee: Ricoh Company, Ltd.Inventors: Hideo Ichikawa, Takeshi Saito, Sunao Ikeda, Nobuhiro Makita, Seiji Ozawa, Shigeru Yoshiki, Takaaki Yanagisawa
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Patent number: 5740507Abstract: A toner container densely packed with toner to be replenished into a developing unit included in an image forming apparatus, and a method of producing the same. The toner is packed in the container with a ratio of a packing density to a saturation bulk density greater than 1.0, a mean penetration greater than 5.0 mm inclusive, and a standard deviation of penetration not exceeding one-fifth of the mean penetration. The toner can be smoothly and continuously replenished into the developing unit so as to form a number of images matching the amount thereof.Type: GrantFiled: April 4, 1996Date of Patent: April 14, 1998Assignee: Ricoh Company, Ltd.Inventors: Hideo Ichikawa, Sunao Ikeda, Nobuhiro Makita, Michiharu Narushima, Seiji Terazawa, Masakazu Nakada, Kazuhiko Umemura
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Patent number: 5727607Abstract: A powder feeding method includes the steps of injecting a gaseous medium into a powder material held in a hopper from a porous wall forming a funnel at a bottom part of said hopper, such that the injection of the gaseous medium is carried out intermittently.Type: GrantFiled: January 25, 1996Date of Patent: March 17, 1998Assignee: Ricoh Company, Ltd.Inventors: Hideo Ichikawa, Sunao Ikeda, Michiharu Narushima, Nobuhiro Makita
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Patent number: 5711353Abstract: A powder filling method and a powder filling device for filling a powder such as toner, chemical, cosmetics or food material in a powder container efficiently at a high density includes the steps of inserting an air aspirating pipe in a powder filled in a powder container, aspirating air in the powder through the air aspirating pipe, and moving one end of the air aspirating pipe from a bottom portion to a top portion of the powder container, corresponding to an amount of the powder filled.Type: GrantFiled: January 19, 1996Date of Patent: January 27, 1998Assignee: Ricoh Company, Ltd.Inventors: Hideo Ichikawa, Sunao Ikeda, Michiharu Narushima, Nobuhiro Makita
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Patent number: 5655195Abstract: In a developing device included in an image forming apparatus, a toner cartridge has a body and a replenishing member disposed in the body. The cartridge makes it needless to adhere or otherwise affix an elastic piece to the edge of the base of the replenishing member that slidably contacts the inner periphery of the body. The replenishing member is capable of scooping up toner while being held in sliding contact with the inner periphery of the body under a constant pressure.Type: GrantFiled: July 14, 1995Date of Patent: August 5, 1997Assignee: Ricoh Company, Ltd.Inventors: Hideo Ichikawa, Seiji Terazawa, Sunao Ikeda
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Patent number: 5627631Abstract: A developer replenishing device for replenishing a developing device with a developer, and a developer container for use therewith. The developer container, or toner bottle, has a mouth portion at one end thereof which is smaller in diameter than a hollow cylindrical main body. At the end of the bottle provided with the mouth, a shoulder has the inner periphery thereof partly raised to the edge of the mouth portion to form a raised portion for scooping up a toner. In addition, a part of the inner periphery of the circumferential wall of the bottle which is contiguous with the raised portion is also raised toward the axis of the bottle about which the bottle is rotatable, thereby forming another raised portion. When the bottle is mounted to a bottle holder, which is included in the replenishing device, substantially horizontally with the mouth portion oriented sideways, the bottle is rotated to raise the toner from the bottom of the main body to the mouth portion.Type: GrantFiled: January 17, 1996Date of Patent: May 6, 1997Assignee: Ricoh Company, Ltd.Inventors: Hideo Ichikawa, Takeshi Saito, Sunao Ikeda, Nobuhiro Makita, Seiji Ozawa, Shigeru Yoshiki, Takaaki Yanagisawa
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Patent number: 5500719Abstract: A developer replenishing device for replenishing a developing device with a developer, and a developer container for use therewith. The developer container, or toner bottle, has a mouth portion at one end thereof which is smaller in diameter than a hollow cylindrical main body. At the end of the bottle provided with the mouth, a shoulder has the inner periphery thereof partly raised to the edge of the mouth portion to form a raised portion for scooping up a toner. In addition, a part of the inner periphery of the circumferential wall of the bottle which is contiguous with the raised portion is also raised toward the axis of the bottle about which the bottle is rotatable, thereby forming another raised portion. When the bottle is mounted to a bottle holder, which is included in the replenishing device, substantially horizontally with the mouth portion oriented sideways, the bottle is rotated to raise the toner from the bottom of the main body to the mouth portion.Type: GrantFiled: February 10, 1995Date of Patent: March 19, 1996Assignee: Ricoh Company, Ltd.Inventors: Hideo Ichikawa, Takeshi Saito, Sunao Ikeda, Nobuhiro Makita, Seiji Ozawa, Shigeru Yoshiki, Takaaki Yanagisawa
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Patent number: 5455662Abstract: A developer replenishing device for replenishing a developing device with a developer, and a developer container for use therewith. The developer container, or toner bottle, has a mouth portion at one end thereof which is smaller in diameter than a hollow cylindrical main body. At the end of the bottle provided with the mouth, a shoulder has the inner periphery thereof partly raised to the edge of the mouth portion to form a raised portion for scooping up a toner. In addition, a part of the inner periphery of the circumferential wall of the bottle which is contiguous with the raised portion is also raised toward the axis of the bottle about which the bottle is rotatable, thereby forming another raised portion. When the bottle is mounted to a bottle holder, which is included in the replenishing device, substantially horizontally with the mouth portion oriented sideways, the bottle is rotated to raise the toner from the bottom of the main body to the mouth portion.Type: GrantFiled: December 28, 1993Date of Patent: October 3, 1995Assignee: Ricoh Company, Ltd.Inventors: Hideo Ichikawa, Takeshi Saito, Sunao Ikeda, Nobuhiro Makita, Seiji Ozawa, Shigeru Yoshiki, Takaaki Yanagisawa
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Patent number: 4921236Abstract: A recycling automatic document feeder usable with an electronic copier and others includes a reversing section for feeding a document to a glass platen of the copier while turning it over. The document feeder adapts itself to a single-face and a double-face copy mode as well as to a document through type and an optical scan type exposing system.Type: GrantFiled: January 4, 1989Date of Patent: May 1, 1990Assignee: Ricoh Company, Ltd.Inventors: Sirou Saeki, Sunao Ikeda, Hirohisa Otsuka, Nobuyuki Yanagawa
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Patent number: 4912501Abstract: An automatic original circulating and feeding apparatus apparatus comprises an original feeding base for receiving a plurality of originals thereon, which are piled up with image faces thereof turned downwardly, an original separating and feeding device for successively separating the piled up originals on the original feeding base one by one from a lowermost original and feeding them one by one in an order separated, a reversible and speed-changeable belt conveyor device disposed in an exposure part for exposing each of the originals fed, and a sensor disposed at a position separated by at least the largest original length from the original separating and feeding mechanism, for selectively setting a scanning copy mode or a sheet through copy mode and for controlling a position of the original for a copy mode selected.Type: GrantFiled: May 16, 1989Date of Patent: March 27, 1990Assignee: Ricoh Company, Ltd.Inventors: Shiro Saeki, Sunao Ikeda
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Patent number: 4903085Abstract: An automatic original circulating and feeding apparatus comprises an original feeding base for receiving a plurality of originals thereon, which are piled-up with image-faces thereof downwardly, an original separating and feeding device for separating and feeding piled-up originals one by one, a belt conveyor device disposed in an exposure portion for exposing each of the originals, a turning over and conveyor device disposed at downstream of the belt conveyor device in the carrying direction, a discharging and carrying device disposed to connect the turning over and conveyor device with the original feeding base, and a switchback turning over and conveyor device disposed along an original passage provided in the discharging and carrying device.Type: GrantFiled: April 1, 1988Date of Patent: February 20, 1990Assignee: Ricoh Company, Ltd.Inventors: Sunao Ikeda, Shiro Saeki
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Patent number: 4860057Abstract: An automatic original circulating and feeding apparatus apparatus comprises an original feeding base for receiving a plurality of originals thereon, which are piled up with image faces thereof turned downwardly, an original separating and feeding device for successively separating the piled up originals on the original feeding basee one by one from a lowermost original and feeding them one by one in an order separated, a reversible and speed-changeable belt conveyor device disposed in an exposure part for exposing each of the orignals fed, and a sensor disposed at a position separated by at least the largest original length from the original separating and feeding mechanism, for selectively setting a scanning copy mode or a sheet through copy mode and for controlling a position of the original for a copy mode selected.Type: GrantFiled: April 1, 1988Date of Patent: August 22, 1989Assignee: Ricoh Company, Ltd.Inventors: Shiro Saeki, Sunao Ikeda
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Patent number: 4482147Abstract: A sheet arranging system for use with a sorter, collator, etc., providing a sheet arranging section defined by receiving rollers, delivery rollers and a forward reference edge, wherein sheets fed on the basis of rearward reference are moved toward a forward reference. The sheet arranging section has sheet obliquely moving means located therein for obliquely moving toward the delivery rollers and the forward reference edge the sheet released from the receiving rollers in accordance with the rearward reference irrespective of the size of the sheet, while so rotating the sheet that a corner of the leading edge of the sheet near to the operator is moved away from the forward reference edge.Type: GrantFiled: August 5, 1982Date of Patent: November 13, 1984Assignee: Ricoh Co., Ltd.Inventors: Kunio Hibi, Tamaki Kaneko, Sunao Ikeda, Tugio Okuzawa, Yohtaro Kakitani, Hideo Kikuchi
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Patent number: 4449813Abstract: A deflector (C) is movable relative to bin (E) to selectively deflect sheets into the bins (E) for collation. An enable signal for a next collation operation is generated when a sensor (94) senses that the required number of sheets for collation have been discharged into the bins (E). The sensor (94) in combination with a sensor (45) which senses sheets entering the collator (2) detect a sheet jam and enable computation of the number of jammed sheets by subtracting the number of sheets discharged into the bins (E) from the number of sheets entering the collator (2).Type: GrantFiled: January 3, 1983Date of Patent: May 22, 1984Assignee: Ricoh Company, Ltd.Inventors: Hideo Kikuchi, Sunao Ikeda, Yohtaro Kakitani, Kunio Hibi, Tugio Okuzawa
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Patent number: 4439865Abstract: A sorter for a copy machine is equipped with a portion adapted to receive sheets inserted manually for use as covers or partitions of the copies in the sorter. The sorter may be formed of one or more sorter portions arranged serially and is provided with a memory register for memorizing information corresponding to the number of sheets to be inserted manually, a count register for counting the number of sheets for manual insertion, and a circuit for inhibiting the manual insert operation for a predetermined period of time after the contents in the memory register becomes equal to the contents in the count register, thereby attaining the precise and reliable collation and sorting of the sheets to be inserted as covers and partitions.Type: GrantFiled: January 7, 1981Date of Patent: March 27, 1984Assignee: Ricoh Company, Ltd.Inventors: Hideo Kikuchi, Tamaki Kaneko, Kunio Hibi, Sunao Ikeda, Yohtaro Kakitani
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Patent number: 4365887Abstract: A sheet distribution method is provided which, when a stop switch (20) to stop a copying operation of a copying machine (1) or an interrupt switch (21) to interrupt the copying operation is depressed during the copying operation in a collation mode or an assortment mode, inhibits any further copying operation while keeping only a copy sheet conveyor section operative to deliver already fed copy sheets to a collator 82). When the number of copy sheets stored in the collator (2) has coincided with the number of fresh sheets fed out of the copying machine (1) during that copying operation, the conveyor section is made inoperative and the next copy start and variation in the operating mode of the machine (1) or preset number of sheet to be copied are permitted.Type: GrantFiled: September 22, 1980Date of Patent: December 28, 1982Assignee: Ricoh Company, Ltd.Inventors: Yohtaro Kakitani, Tamaki Kaneko, Sunao Ikeda, Tugio Okuzawa, Hideo Kikuchi, Kunio Hibi
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Patent number: 4361319Abstract: A bin for receiving sheets arranged in an apparatus for collating or sorting of sheets fed successively, which includes a rear end portion, a front end portion and an intermediate inclination portion connected therebetween. The front end portion includes a stopper or stoppers extending substantially vertical for stopping a front end of the sheet fed into the bin and a straight guide portion, on which the stopper or stoppers attached. The rear end portion includes an upright plate extending substantially vertical used for stopping and aligning a rear end of the sheet and a plate inclined so as to go down forwards in sheet feeding direction. The intermediate inclination portion is connected at front and rear end with the straight guide plate and the inclined plate of the rear end portion direct or through curve portion. In this bin the sheet can be aligned by using falling motion of the sheet with the own weight.Type: GrantFiled: September 19, 1980Date of Patent: November 30, 1982Assignee: Ricoh Co., Ltd.Inventors: Sunao Ikeda, Tamaki Kaneko, Kunio Hibi, Tugio Okuzawa, Yohtaro Kakitani, Hideo Kikuchi