Patent ID: 8472824

Claim:
An image forming apparatus comprising: (a) a plurality of image carriers; (b) an image forming section in accordance with each of the plurality of image carriers; (c) an intermediate transfer member to which a toner image formed on at least one image forming section is primary transferred; (d) a secondary transfer section which transfers the toner image that has been transferred on the intermediate transfer member onto a transfer material; (e) a first cleaning blade provided on the intermediate transfer member, which cleans toner remained on the intermediate transfer member; a second cleaning blade provided on the secondary transfer section, which cleans the toner remained on the secondary transfer section; (g) a bias power source which is electrically connected to the secondary transfer section; and (h) a controller which is configured to be capable of causing the image forming section to form a patch toner image onto a non-image area on the image carrier corresponding to an area between adjoining two transfer materials and supplying the patch toner image to the secondary transfer section, and which controls the bias power source to conduct a power control in synchronization with a position moving timing of the patch toner image, to supply selectively the patch toner image on the non-image area between adjoining two transfer materials to the intermediate transfer member and the secondary transfer section.