Patent ID: 8055178

Claim:
A cleaning device for use with an image forming apparatus which includes: an image carrier, a charging device for uniformly charging a surface of the image carrier, an exposing device for exposing the uniformly-charged surface of the image carrier to form an electrostatic image, a developing device for developing the formed electrostatic image with a developing agent so as to form a visible image on the image carrier, and a transferring device for transferring the image on the image carrier onto a transferring member, the cleaning device for removing the developing agent remaining on the image carrier after the visible image has passed through the transferring device, the cleaning device including: a cleaning blade including an elastic blade which is supported by a supporting member, an edge of the elastic blade being in contact with the surface of the image carrier, and the supporting member being fixed to a prescribed position of the cleaning device; a pressing member disposed in the vicinity of the downstream side of the image carrier with respect to the elastic blade and extending in the longitudinal direction of and directly contacting the elastic blade; and a driving mechanism for driving the pressing member so that the pressing member is in direct contact with and presses a downstream side surface of the elastic blade; wherein when an image forming process is ended, the driving mechanism operates so that the pressing member is in contact with and presses the elastic blade in the upstream direction of the image carrier so as to temporarily separate the elastic blade from the surface of the image carrier, and then, the driving mechanism operates to move the pressing member to be separated from the elastic blade so that the elastic blade returns to contact with the surface of the image carrier, and just before the elastic blade separates from the image carrier, the image carrier rotates for a prescribed angular distance in a direction opposite to a normal direction for forming an image so that when the elastic blade next contacts the image carrier, the elastic blade contacts the image carrier rotated by the prescribed angular distance.