Microsoft Technology Licensing, LLC

Thomas W Green

Georgios Chrysanthakopoulos

Jameel Hyder

Kenneth Grey Richards

Mark R Sestak

John Nels Fuller

Methods, systems, and computer program products for abstracting device driver development by layering certain functionality. A driver layer encapsulates device commands and data within a format that is independent of the type of connection between the device and a host computer. Once encapsulated, the device commands and data pass through an intermediate layer responsible for transferring the encapsulated device commands and data to a connection-specific layer. The connection-specific layer then places the encapsulated device commands and data on the particular connection that couples the device and host computer. A single driver layer, potentially provided by an operating system, can thus operate a plurality of devices. Accordingly, hardware developers can be freed from the burden of writing the numerous host-based device drivers that are otherwise required to support an increasing number of connections between devices and host computers, specifically exemplified by improved bus and networking technologies.

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Redmond, WA, United States of America

Thomas W Green