Patent ID: 8126380

Claim:
An image forming apparatus comprising: a plurality of image forming units forming a visible image by attaching charged developer to an electrostatic latent image; a transfer belt member that has the visible image formed by each of the plurality of image forming units transferred thereto; a plurality of tension members tightly stretching the transfer belt member; a primary transfer member transferring the visible image formed by the plurality of image forming units to the transfer belt member; a secondary transfer member transferring the visible image transferred to the transfer belt member to a recording medium; and a fixing unit fixing the visible image transferred to the recording medium, wherein the plurality of image forming units are disposed in at least two transfer regions formed by segmenting the transfer belt member by the plurality of the tension members, and wherein at least one of the tension members disposed between an image forming unit positioned at a most upperstream side in a print direction and an image forming unit positioned at a most downstream side in the print direction is applied with an electrical potential of a polarity reverse to a polarity of an electrical potential charged to the developer.