Microsoft Technology Licensing, LLC

Shawn E Maloney

Justin Allen Hutchings

Frank Gorgenyi

Feng Yue

Daniel Oliver

Jerry K Koh

Steve Seixeiro

Joshua A Dersch

Lindsey R Noll

Robert John Anderson

Erik O Peterson

J Adrian Lannin

Andrew W Harper

Frank Olivier

Anthony Xavier Francisco

In one or more embodiments, a print server can publish, to client devices, capabilities and configurations of one or more print devices utilizing a device-independent 'personality.' Client devices can then use an associated device-independent print driver to select print job settings and record print job content for a particular print job, in a device-independent format, that is then to be sent to the print server. The print server can then process the device-independent format that describes the print job, and convert the print job into a print device-specific format that can be consumed by a particular specific print device. In at least some embodiments, the client device can cause a print job to be printed on a print device, via a print server, without downloading, utilizing or otherwise accessing a print driver that is specific to the print device.

Printing using a platform-independent driver

Embodiments of the invention provide a layered printer driver model in which, at the 'bottom layer,' a rendering component provides rendering functionality to format information constituting a print job initiated according to a page description language that a printer device is designed to process, and one or more other components that provide configuration and/or user experience functionality may 'sit atop' the bottom layer. Any or all of these higher-level components may support not just a single printer device, but a class of printer devices defined by one or more shared characteristics.

Multi-layered printer driver model

In accordance with the automatic peripheral device sharing, a peripheral device that has been newly installed on a device is detected and is shared with one or more additional devices coupled to the device. A notification of the peripheral device is automatically published to the one or more additional devices. This notification includes an indication of how the one or more additional devices can access the peripheral device. Each of the one or more additional devices can receive this notification and determine whether the peripheral device can be automatically installed on that device without user input. For each of the one or more additional devices, the peripheral device is installed on that device only if the peripheral device can be automatically installed on that device without user input.

Automatic peripheral device sharing

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Redmond, WA, United States of America

Shawn E Maloney