Patent ID: 7929877

Claim:
A transfer device comprising: an intermediate transfer member that moves endlessly; an image carrier that comes into contact with a first surface of the intermediate transfer member to form a first transfer nip; a first contacting member that is applied with a first transfer bias while in contact with a first region or near the first region to transfer a toner image on the image carrier onto the intermediate transfer member or a toner image that has already been transferred onto the intermediate transfer member in a superimposed manner at the first transfer nip to obtain a superimposed toner image, the first region being a portion of a second surface of the intermediate transfer member corresponding to the first transfer nip; a nip forming member that comes into contact with the first surface of the intermediate transfer member to form a second transfer nip; and a second contacting member that is applied with a second transfer bias while in contact with a second region or near the second region to transfer the superimposed toner image on the intermediate transfer member onto a recording medium at the second transfer nip, the second region being a portion of the second surface of the intermediate transfer member corresponding to the second transfer nip, wherein a closest distance between a surface of the image carrier and a surface of the first contacting member is greater than a thickness of the intermediate transfer member.