Patent ID: 8380115

Claim:
A lubricant applicator rotatable at multiple different linear velocities, comprising: a rotatable lubricant applying member to scrape a lubricant and to apply the lubricant to a surface of an image carrier rotatable at multiple different linear velocities, wherein the lubricant applicator is configured to reduce a linear velocity of the lubricant applying member in response to a reduction in the linear velocity of the image carrier, and increase the linear velocity of the image carrier, such that any given linear velocity of the lubricant applying member satisfies a relation of n 1 /N 1 >n 2 /N 2 > . . . n x /N x , where N 1 , N 2 , . . . N x (N 1 <N 2 < . . . N x ) are the multiple different linear velocities of the image carrier, n 1 , n 2 , . . . n x are multiple linear velocities of the lubricant applying member corresponding to the multiple linear velocities of the image carrier, and x is an integer that increase in value in correspondence with a relative increase in the linear velocities of the lubricant applying member and the image carrier.