Patent ID: 6885842

Claim:
An image forming apparatus comprising: a plurality of image forming devices each comprising an image carrier, a charger configured to uniformly charge a surface of said image carrier, and a developer configured to develop a latent image formed on the charged surface of said image carrier with toner to thereby produce a corresponding toner image; a primary image transferring device configured to transfer toner images from image carriers of said plurality of image forming devices to an intermediate image transfer body one above the other, thereby completing a composite toner image; and a secondary image transfer device configured to transfer the composite toner image from said intermediate image transfer body to a recording medium; said primary image transfer device comprising: said intermediate image transfer body including at least an elastic layer; a cleaning device configured to clean said intermediate image transfer body; and a coating device configured to coat a lubricant on said intermediate image transfer body, wherein said charger is released from said image carrier substantially at the same time as said coating device is released from said intermediate image transfer body.