ALEXANDRIA, Va., Oct. 22 -- Kenichi Ashida of Toyohashi, Japan, and Takuya Wada of Minamishitara, Japan, have developed a toner cartridge for an image forming apparatus.

According to the U.S. Patent & Trademark Office: "A toner cartridge for an image forming apparatus which can detect the remaining state of a developer even when the developer in the cartridge is biased by the rotation and stirring of a rotary conveyance body. A developer detector arranged outside the toner cartridge has a light projecting unit and a light receiving unit, and the toner cartridge has detection windows through which light projected from the light projecting unit is input and output."

An abstract of the ...