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:
Jan. 13, 2015
Filed:
Sep. 13, 2004
Atsushi Umekage, Chiba, JP;
Hiroshi Takatani, Nara, JP;
Norihide Kunikawa, Osaka, JP;
Sharp Kabushiki Kaisha, Osaka, JP;
Abstract
A line concentrator classifies printers connected via a communications network into groups according to the capabilities of the printers and includes a storage section which stores a VLAN table classifying the printers into groups and listing virtual addresses corresponding to the respective groups. When a monitoring section receives data addressed to a virtual address, it refers to the VLAN table and performs controls so as to transmit the received data to all of the printers belonging to the group corresponding to the virtual address. Thus, it is possible to eliminate the problem, such as concentration of jobs to a specific information processing device, and to provide a line concentrator capable of rapidly performing data transfer processing.