Patent 7854648 was granted and assigned to RICOH COMPANY,LTD. on December, 2010 by the United States Patent and Trademark Office.
A cleaning medium flies with an air current in a cleaning tank to collide with an object to be cleaned so as to remove an extraneous substance attached to the object. The cleaning medium includes an outer surface that comes into contact with the object and an inner surface that remains out of contact with the object. The cleaning medium is flexible and formed in a shape that allows the air current to flow from the outside onto the inner surface of the cleaning medium.