Patent ID: 6993281

Claim:
An image forming apparatus comprising: an image carrier; developing means for developing a latent image formed on said image carrier by depositing a toner to thereby form a corresponding toner image; image transferring means for forming an electric field between said image carrier and a subject body of image transfer to thereby transfer the toner image from said image carrier to said subject body; cleaning means using a bladeless system for removing a residual toner left on said image carrier after image transfer without scraping off said residual toner with a blade member; and a flexible member disposed upstream of the cleaning means and affixed at one edge portion, the flexible member having a flat surface including a grooved portion having a plurality of grooves, the flat surface of the flexible member including the grooved portion extending from the affixed one edge portion to a free edge portion, said plurality of grooves each extending over an image forming range of a surface of said image carrier perpendicularly to a direction in which said surface of said image carrier is movable; wherein said flexible member is positioned such that at least said grooved portion of the flat surface contacts the surface of said image carrier with said flexible member being deformed.