Patent ID: 7019870

Claim:
An image forming apparatus, comprising: an upper body; an image reading device that is mounted in the upper body and that reads an image on an original document; a lower body that is placed under the upper body; an image forming device that is mounted in the lower body that forms the image on a recording medium; a hinge member that connects the upper body and the lower body, the upper body being pivoted about the hinge member between an open position where the upper body is open with respect to the lower body and a close position where the upper body is closed with respect to the lower body; a groove that is formed on the lower body; a link member that is pivotally connected to the upper body at one end and connected to the groove at the other end so as to slide in the groove; and an elastic member that is connected to the lower body at one end and the link member at the other end, the elastic member being deformed when the link member moves together with the upper body, an amount of deformation of the elastic member increasing when the upper body is moved from the open position to the close position, wherein the groove has a first range where a moment to pivot the upper body to the close position is generated.