Patent ID: 7929889

Claim:
An image forming apparatus comprising: a latent image carrier that circulates in a predetermined rotating direction; a charging unit that charges a surface of the latent image carrier with a voltage having the same polarity as a regular charging polarity of a toner non-contactively to the surface of the latent image carrier at a predetermined charging position; a latent image forming unit that forms an electrostatic latent image on the surface of the latent image carrier by allowing the voltages of the charged surface of the latent image carrier to be different from each other between an image portion to which the toner is adhered and a non-image portion to which the toner is not adhered at a latent image forming position in a downstream of the charging position in the rotating direction; a developing unit that has a toner carrier non-contactively facing the latent image carrier at a developing position in a downstream of the latent image forming position in the rotating direction and develops the electrostatic latent image as a toner image by transporting a charged toner carried on a surface of the toner carrier to the developing position and applying an alternating voltage as a developing bias; a transferring unit that transfers the toner image on the transfer medium by abutting a transfer medium on the latent image carrier and applying a transferring bias having a polarity opposite to the regular charging polarity to the transfer medium at a transferring position in the downstream of the developing position in the rotating direction; and a cleaning unit that removes a toner that is charged with a regular charging polarity and remains to be adhered to the surface of the latent image carrier by abutting an abutting member applied with a voltage having a polarity opposite to the regular charging polarity on the latent image carrier at a cleaning position in a downstream of the transferring position in the rotating direction, wherein the toner carrier carries a toner layer including a contact toner that is directly in contact with the surface of the toner carrier and a non-contact toner that is not directly in contact with the surface of the toner carrier on the surface thereof, and wherein a voltage of the transferring bias is a DC voltage that does not generate discharge between the image portion of the latent image carrier and the transfer medium but generate discharge between the non-image portion of the latent image carrier and the transfer medium.