Patent 7374527 was granted and assigned to Sumitomo Rubber Industries on May, 2008 by the United States Patent and Trademark Office.
A rubber roller, for use in an image-forming apparatus, which is formed by molding a rubber composition into the shape of a roller. In the rubber roller, a complex elastic modulus E* of rubber and a surface roughness Rz of the rubber roller satisfy a relationship indicated by an equation (1) shown below; and a hardness change of the rubber is set to not more than five points when the rubber ages at 70° C. for eight days:7×Ln E*−0.12×Rz+3.0≦10. Equation (1)