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:
Jun. 13, 2017
Filed:
Aug. 08, 2013
Tabletop Media Llc, Dallas, TX (US);
Viren R. Balar, Murphy, TX (US);
Christopher M. Wellheuser, Plano, TX (US);
Jeffrey E. Taylor, Lucas, TX (US);
Kevin C. Mowry, Lewisville, TX (US);
Tiegang Li, Plano, TX (US);
Tabletop Media, LLC, Dallas, TX (US);
Abstract
A table-side hospitality device includes an integral printer mechanism, such as a thermal printer. The device comprises a general purpose processing unit on which a mobile- or embedded-device operating system, such as Android, executes. A control program (the device application) executing on the processing unit facilitates ordering, order management, invoicing and payment. When the application needs to print, it interacts with the printer directly, preferably using the general purpose input-output (GPIO) bus of the processor. In particular, during the print operation, the processor (via the general purpose I/O) outputs, as a set of control signals, a bit-map of the desired graphics (text, images, or the like), and these control signals drive the printer directly without requiring a dedicated micro-controller or OS-specific printer drivers.