The patent badge is an abbreviated version of the USPTO patent document. The patent badge does contain a link to the full patent document.
The patent badge is an abbreviated version of the USPTO patent document. The patent badge covers the following: Patent number, Date patent was issued, Date patent was filed, Title of the patent, Applicant, Inventor, Assignee, Attorney firm, Primary examiner, Assistant examiner, CPCs, and Abstract. The patent badge does contain a link to the full patent document (in Adobe Acrobat format, aka pdf). To download or print any patent click here.
Patent No.:
Date of Patent:
May. 19, 1998
Filed:
Sep. 09, 1996
Paul E Reilly, San Jose, CA (US);
Ted W Walker, Sunnyvale, CA (US);
Apple Computer, Inc., Cupertino, CA (US);
Abstract
An architecture for a network printing system is provided that allows the network printer to achieve and enhance two-way communication between the host computers and the printer connected to the network. The architecture layers provide a normalized interface to the layers below so that all of the protocol/ports interact in the same way. More particularly, an imaging device protocol (IDP) and an IDP emulator enable various network service protocol/ports, both IDP and non-IDP ports, to communicate with the network printer by 'seamless plug and play' connectivity. Furthermore, this architecture allows host computers to request network printer services through a client service connection protocol (CSCP) and IDP when these protocols are supported and emulates CSCP/IDP interactions when the network services do not support the CSCP/IDP protocols so that print job requests may be executed from the same print queue. This architecture also may be easily extended and integrated with new protocol/ports as they are developed and introduced.