Canon Kabushiki Kaisha

Paul Nicholas Gacek

Don Francis Purpura

George Koppich

Douglas Richard Barr

Michael Lee Yeung

Tapani Juha Otala

Abhijit Rao

Neil Y Iwamoto

Donald Parke Gibson

Costin Valeriu Cozianu

Lionel Gregory Croom

Brian M Keane, Jr

Internet-based printing to a home printer in which the print job is pre-rasterized at the cable head end and sent in rasterized format to the set top box. Because the print job is pre-rasterized at the cable head end, and not at the set top box, resources are not wasted at the set top box when they are more readily available at the cable head end. In addition, because of the high speed communication network already in existence between the cable head end and the set top box, even large pre-rasterized print jobs can be transmitted to the set top box in reasonable amounts of time, meaning more quickly than a situation in which it was the set top box that performed rasterization.

Home printing from internet sources

The present invention relates to the retrieval and storage of image data captured using a digital image acquisition device such as a still camera, a video camera or a scanning device, and of image data stored on removable storage media such as compact flash, smart and memory stick media. An image retrieval architecture is described such that image data may be retrieved from any digital image acquisition device and/or from removable storage media, and a 'one-click' operation is available to minimize an amount of interaction needed to retrieve image data from the digital image acquisition device.

Digital image retrieval and storage

Secure printing of print data from a client application residing on a data network to a set top box which has a printer, the set top box residing on a digital cable network which has a cable head end for interfacing the digital cable network to the data network, wherein print data is generated in the client application after which it is determined whether a secure communication path exists between the client application and the set top box. If the secure communication path exists, the print data is transmitted from the client application to the set top box. The print data is then sent from the set top box to the printer for printing.

Secure printing over cable network to home printer

Authorized transmission of print data from an internet application to a home access device having a printer connected thereto, the printer being serviced by a remote print server which controls data transmission to the home access device, in which authorization is obtained from an intermediary service for the internet application to transmit the print data to the home access device via the remote print server, and in which the authorized print data is transmitted to the home access device via the remote print server for printing on the printer.

Third-party authorization for home-based printing

A software architecture for printing to a home printer via a cable television communication network includes complementary clients and servers executing on each of the internet components participating in the internet-based printing. A client executes at the remote internet-based site that originates the print job, and transmits the print job to a complimentary server at the cable head end. A server at the cable head end spools the print job and preferably converts the print job into a format more suitable for a next-downstream device, such as a cable set top box. The cable head end further includes a client which transmits the print job from the cable head end's server to a server at the set top box. The server at the set top box spools the print job to an attached printer. Preferably each of the clients and each of the servers is nearly identical to all other clients and servers, and each communicates to other applications including client applications through a consistent and uniform application programming interface.

Growing community of inventors

Laguna Beach, CA, United States of America

Paul Nicholas Gacek