Ricoh Company, Ltd.

Yao-Tian Wang

Lifen Tian

Alain Regnier

Hitoshi Sekine

Yue Liu

Soiba Mohammad

Senthil K Selvaraj

Zhenning Xiao

Yuwen Wu

Yi Ding

Kurt Knodt

Systems and methods are disclosed for enabling remote printing services to consistently obtain and utilize print capabilities of printing devices across a wide variety of connection topologies. A client device retrieves the print capabilities from one or more printing devices selected for printing a document. The document and the print capabilities are transmitted to a web print service for rending the document. The web print service generates a print job based on the document and the print capabilities of the printing device selected for printing the document. The web print service provides the print job to the selected printing device for subsequent printing.

Methods and systems for providing device specific print options to remote printing services

In an embodiment, a data processing system comprises device driver generation logic that is encoded in one or more computer-readable storage media for execution and which when executed is operable to perform receiving a first capability description from a computer peripheral device, wherein the first capability description describes one or more capabilities of the computer peripheral device; receiving a generic device driver file; receiving configuration data; automatically generating a device driver for the computer peripheral device and for a computer operating system based on the first capability description, the generic device driver file and the configuration data; device job processing logic that is configured to receive a request to use the computer peripheral device, to request and receive current first capability description from the computer peripheral device at the time of the request, to generate based on the current first capability description and send to the computer peripheral device job ticket data that describes a job for the computer peripheral device to perform, and to provide job data formatted in a page description language to the computer peripheral device.

Automatically generating capability-based computer peripheral device drivers

Systems and methods presented herein provide for printer discovery with a webpage such that a client device may print the webpage via a remote printing service. The client device retrieves a webpage with an internet browser. The webpage includes a printer detection module that detects printing devices of one data network and transfers their printing characteristics to a print server in another data network. The printer detection module is accessible through the webpage. The printer detection module allows for the selection of one or more of the printing devices. The client device transfers the webpage (or the URL of the webpage) to the print server to render the webpage for printing on the selected printing device. The print server renders the webpage according to the printing characteristics of the selected printing device and then transfers the rendered webpage to the selected printing device via the client device for printing.

Printer discovery within a web page

Techniques are provided for reducing the amount of event notifications within a Web Service Application (WSA) of a device such as a multi-functional peripheral (MFP). In one technique, a Subscription ID is linked with a Job ID within a reduced notification table. When an event occurs related to a specific job, an event notification is sent only to the subscriber associated with that job.

Method and apparatus for reduction of event notification within a web service application of a multi-functional peripheral

In an embodiment, a computer-implemented process comprises, in a computer peripheral device that is configured to be coupled to a computer system, creating and storing one or more user interface modifiers that are defined by the device and configured to be used by the computer system to modify rendering of a user interface in the computer system; and providing the device defined user interface modifiers to the computer system. In an embodiment, the device defined user interface modifiers comprise one or more priority values for one or more features of the device; each of the one or more priority values is associated with an identifier of one of the features; and each of the priority values indicates a relative importance of the associated feature in comparison to other features.

Providing device defined user interface modifiers to a computer system

In an embodiment, a computer-implemented method comprises sending, to a computer peripheral device, a request to obtain capabilities of the computer peripheral device; receiving a first capability description from the computer peripheral device, wherein the first capability description describes one or more capabilities, features or functions of the device at the time of the request; creating one or more graphical user interface (GUI) elements based upon the first capability description and causing displaying the GUI elements; receiving user input representing one or more selections of the GUI elements; creating job ticket data that describes a job for the computer peripheral device to perform, based on the GUI elements that were selected as represented in the user input; sending the job ticket data to the peripheral device; wherein the job ticket data describes one or more device settings that the computer peripheral device can transform to device commands.

Capability-based control device driver of a computer peripheral device

Techniques are provided for efficiently processing SOAP requests at a Web service application (WSA) of a multi-functional device (MFP). In one technique, a WSA includes at least three threads. An external request processing thread processes SOAP requests from different client applications. A request processing thread processes a SOAP request according to the business logic of the WSA. A internal communications thread communicates with other components of the MFP that are distinct from the WSA. In another technique, a WSA processes different SOAP request differently, depending on the size of the SOAP and the resources required to process the SOAP request so that fast requests may be processed immediately while slow requests are pending. In another technique, a WS-Eventing specification is implemented within a WSA to simplify the event subscription and notification process.

Integrating eventing in a web service application of a multi-functional peripheral

Processing fast and slow SOAP requests differently in a web service application of a multi-functional peripheral

A method and mechanism for a client causing an electronic document to be printed without using a printer driver installed on the client is provided. A client discovers one or more printing devices on a network. The client communicates with a discovered printing device to identify the printing features supported by the discovered printing device. When the client receives a request to print an electronic document to a selected printing device, the client sends the electronic document and print configuration data to the selected printing device. As the client has been informed of the printing features supported by the selected printing device, the client can send the electronic document and the print configuration data to the selected printing device in a form readable by the selected printing device. The selected printing device processes the electronic document and the print configuration data to produce a printed copy of the electronic document.

Network printing with driverless clients

A method and apparatus for communicating with a device is provided. A user views a graphical user interface displayed on a client. For example, the graphical user interface may correspond to a web page or a graphical user interface of an operating system. The graphical user interface may display an icon. The display of the icon may indicate, to the user, whether a device, associated with the icon, is in an energy-saving mode. The user may configure the icon to cause the client to issue requests to the device. A request, sent from the client to the device, may instruct the device to exit the energy-saving mode. In this way, the user may instruct a device to exit the energy-saving mode (i.e., to 'wake-up') prior to issuing a request for the performance of a service (such as a request to print an electronic document) to the device.

Remote wake-up from an energy-saving mode

A method and apparatus for processing electronic documents is provided. A request, from a first user, to issue an alert to a second user that may have submitted a print request to the printing device is received at the printing device. The printing device may be attempting to process the print request submitted by the second user when the printing device receives the request from the first user. The first user may not know the identity of the second user. The printing device consults contact data that identifies how to contact the second user. The printing device thereafter issues the alert to the second user in accordance with the contact data. Upon receiving the alert, the second user is informed of the current condition of the printing device, e.g., the printing device may be experiencing a problem that prevents the second user's print request from being fully processed.

Growing community of inventors

Sunnyvale, CA, United States of America

Yao-Tian Wang