Patent 7072602 was granted and assigned to Ricoh on July, 2006 by the United States Patent and Trademark Office.
An image forming apparatus including at least two image forming units arranged side by side in an arrangement direction and each of the image forming units contains a photoconductor configured to bear a latent electrostatic image thereon and at least one process device configured to form a toner image on the photoconductor, and a unit case having a notch thereon to grasp the unit case.