Oblon, Spivak, McClelland, Maier & Neustadt, P.C.
Cleaning device for an image forming apparatus
 In an image forming apparatus of the type using spherical toner or toner whose mean volume grain size is 7 .mu.m or less, a cleaning device has at least one cleaning roller facing, but not contacting, a photoconductive element. An electric field for causing the toner to fly from the photoconductive element to the roller is formed between the element and the roller. An alternating field, DC or AC-biased DC bias voltage is applied to the roller. Particularly, a voltage having a rectangular waveform is applied to the roller. 
Ricoh Company, Ltd.
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G03G G03G
inventional inventional
Akira Hiroshi
Sawada Yoshinaga