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:
Mar. 23, 2004
Filed:
Mar. 31, 1999
Mark Joseph Hamzy, Austin, TX (US);
Michael Richard Cooper, Austin, TX (US);
Mark Wayne VanderWiele, Austin, TX (US);
Scott Thomas Jones, Austin, TX (US);
International Business Machines Corporation, Armonk, NY (US);
Abstract
Data is received from a memory, which includes bitmap images, for output on an output device. The images may be stored in compressed or uncompressed form. The operating system, application or generic graphics environment program interface, queries the printer driver for the types of image compression formats supported by the printer. If the image is available in a compatible compressed format, that compressed image is read from memory. Alternatively or in addition, the best possible compression format supported by the printer is selected from the formats available in the printer driver. The image is then loaded in a printer compatible compression format or compressed using the selected format. The image is spooled in the selected compression format. The image file may be spooled as a raw file or metafile depending on the embodiment used. When needed by the printer or video display, the spool file containing the compressed image is accessed from storage, and the compressed image is sent directly to the printer or video display without allocating memory for decompressing the bitmap image or decompressing the image.