Patent ID: 8891994

Claim:
An image forming apparatus comprising: an image carrier that rotates; a patch image forming unit for forming a patch image of toner on the image carrier; a first rotator coming into contact with the image carrier in a rotating state to remove the patch image from on the image carrier; and a second rotator arranged downstream from the first rotator along a rotational direction of the image carrier and coming into contact with the image carrier in a rotating state to remove the patch image from on the image carrier, wherein a length p of the patch image fanned by the patch image forming unit along the rotational direction of the image carrier, a distance b 1 over which the image carrier rotates while the first rotator makes one turn, and a distance b 2 over which the image carrier rotates while the second rotator makes one turn satisfy the following expression (1): p≦|b 1− b 2| (1).