Patent ID: 7428392

Claim:
An image forming apparatus comprising: a photosensitive member; a charger to charge a surface of the photosensitive member; an exposure to expose the surface of the photosensitive member charged by the charger, thereby form an electrostatic latent image; and an image forming unit to develop the electrostatic latent image and transfer the developed image, thereby form an image on a medium, wherein the charger includes: a sawtooth discharge electrode arranged in a longitudinal direction of the photosensitive member; a shield plate having an opening portion on the surface side of the photosensitive member to cover the sawtooth discharge electrode; a cleaning member provided with contact to the sawtooth discharge electrode, to move inside the shield plate in a longitudinal direction of the sawtooth discharge electrode, thereby removes dust from the sawtooth discharge electrode, wherein the cleaning member is an elastic material in which an insection is formed near the contact portion with the sawtooth discharge electrode so that it can be bent in the opposite direction of the movement direction when the cleaning member moves; and a dust collecting portion to collect the dust which fell with movement of the cleaning member; wherein the charger is arranged with a gradient to the photosensitive member.