Canon Kabushiki Kaisha

Canon Development Americas, Inc.

Martin Page

Paul Chen

Richard Alexander Wilson, Jr

Yokichi Joe Tanaka

Katayoun Shoa

Royce Earle Slick

Don Francis Purpura

Neil Y Iwamoto

Vladimir Sevastyanov

Stephanie Ann Suzuki

Hye-Sook Kim Lee

Rajini Bala Giridharagopal

Stephen Keung

Managing a plurality of network devices on a network by detecting the presence of at least one of the plurality of network devices on the network by using a first communication protocol, obtaining, by using the first communication protocol, an information block from each of the detected network devices, wherein the information block contains information related to the corresponding network device, formatting each information block into a directory entry, and sending each directory entry to a directory server via a second communication protocol.

Directory-enabled device management

Printing over a network, such as the Internet, by uploading, via the network, to a printing service provider, print data information and location information, determining identification information based on the uploaded location information, correlating, at the printing service provider, the determined identification information with the uploaded print data information, inputting the identification information at a printing device connected to the network, transmitting the print data information having the correlated identification information to the printing device, and printing the print data information on the printing device. The location information may be a network address from which the uploading step is initiated, where the network address is dynamically determined by a hotel server when a user connects a computing device to a network connection in the hotel. After the uploading step, the printing service provider may query the hotel server for the identification information, with the hotel server determining the identification and transmitting the identification information to the printing service provider in response. The location information may comprise hotel information and the identification information may comprise hotel room key information or credit card information.

Internet printing by hotel guests

Printing over a network by inputting print data to be printed and associated credit card information at a host terminal, uploading a print job comprising the print data to be printed and the associated credit card information to a print data storage server, inputting credit card information at an input device that communicates with the print data storage server, transmitting print data stored in the print data storage server having associated credit card information that corresponds to the credit card information input at the input device, and printing the print data on a printing device. The uploaded print job may be marked as ready for printing such that the print data transmitted to the printing device is that which has been marked as ready for printing. In addition, a display of pending print jobs may be provided for a user to select a print job to print prior to the print data being transmitted to the input device.

Printing with credit card as identification

Growing community of inventors

Tustin, CA, United States of America

Martin Page