Facsimile and static presentation processing – Static presentation processing – Data corruption – power interruption – or print prevention
Reexamination Certificate
1998-05-15
2001-10-30
Popovici, Dov (Department: 2622)
Facsimile and static presentation processing
Static presentation processing
Data corruption, power interruption, or print prevention
C358S001150
Reexamination Certificate
active
06310692
ABSTRACT:
BACKGROUND OF THE INVENTION
1. Field of Invention
This invention relates to the management of printer resources in a print management system. In particular, this invention is directed to dynamic, preventive monitoring of printer resources, and centralizing the supervision of printer resources.
2. Description of Related Art
Print management systems provide a method for controlling and accessing various printers, as well as managing printer resources and other related information, from both proximate and remote locations. However, in the current print management systems, problems arising with printer resources, such as paper supply, toner or ink level, and drum quality, are not resolved until after the problems arise. For example, a system administrator or user located remotely from a printer is not aware of a “low paper” level for that printer until the paper tray is entirely empty. At that point, the printer will not operate until the paper supply is replenished. Thus, any print jobs already sent to the printer will not be printed until the paper supply is replenished. This problem is quite common and causes significant inconvenience and time delay.
As shown in
FIG. 1
, the basic conventional print management system
10
uses a client/server architecture that includes three primary components: a client
20
, a server
40
, and an output device
50
. The client
20
conveys print and management requests to the server
40
and receives responses from the server
40
that arise in response to the submitted requests. In general, although not shown in
FIG. 1
, in these conventional print management systems, a large number of clients
20
will be connected to the server
40
. Similarly, although not shown in
FIG. 1
, a large number of output devices
50
are usually connected to the server
40
and are located at widely distributed locations. The users of the clients
20
can include system administrators, system operators, and other end users.
The server
40
receives these requests from the clients
20
, performs the required actions for each request, and returns the responses to the corresponding client
20
. One such request from a client
20
is a print request, i.e., a request to print one or more copies of one or more documents, with the printed pages output using one or more features. The features can include simplex or duplex printing, stapling or binding, and the like. Thus, a print request represents a collection of one or more documents to be printed, as well as instructions for printing. The server
40
organizes the documents indicated in the print request submitted by the client into a print job. The server then sends the print job and any associated job control commands to the requested one of the output devices
50
.
Each of the output devices
50
is a physical device, or hardware, that is capable of rendering images of documents and producing hard copy output of the print jobs received from the server
40
. Each output device
50
can then return responses to the server
40
regarding its current state or the status of the received print jobs. The output device
50
is commonly a printer.
Recently, more efficient print management systems have been developed. The efficient distribution of print jobs in a print management system is described, for example, in U.S. patent application Ser. No. 08/966,404, filed Nov. 7, 1997, and incorporated herein by reference in its entirety.
As shown in
FIG. 2
, the incorporated '404 application discloses a network print management system
100
. The network print management system
100
includes a network server
140
, a number of clients
120
and a number of printers
150
, although
FIG. 2
shows only one such client
120
and printer
150
. The network server
140
includes a spooler
142
and a supervisor
146
. The supervisor
146
present on the network server
140
can detect and report printer problems, such as a paper jam or an empty paper tray. However, as discussed above, these problems are not detected and reported until after the problem has disabled the particular printer
150
. A system administrator or user would then have to respond to the printer problem. Until the problem is resolved, the disabled printer
150
is inoperable. Thus, the network print management system
100
may become backlogged with print jobs. The print jobs already submitted to the disabled printer
150
will wait in the queue
144
until the problem is resolved.
Also, as shown in
FIG. 2
, the network print management system
100
includes a database
160
for storing system attributes. The term “attributes” refers to the characteristics of print jobs, documents, logical printers, and physical printers. The database
160
is used to store attributes representing fixed reference values, as well as attributes representing system characteristics that are continuously updated as the print management system dynamically changes.
Thus, the attributes are collections of data that describe the entities that form the network print management system
100
. In other words, the attributes define or characterize print management systems abstract entities, or objects. For example, document attributes, such as plex, margin, orientation, etc., describe how the printed material should appear. Printer attributes, such as media-ready, fonts-ready, etc., describe the available resources or features of the printer. Other printer attributes may describe the various printing features that users may use to produce high-quality documents, or they may describe status or configuration information, such as the printer's state or location. In addition to these attributes, there are a suite of attributes to facilitate end user, operator and administrator functions. In summary, the attributes are a set of data that describes the objects of the printer management system
100
.
SUMMARY OF THE INVENTION
System administrators, end users, and vendors need to manage printer resources such as paper supply, toner/ink levels, and drum quality. They need to replace the paper supply, replace ink/toner cartridge, and change the drum before the supplies become completely exhausted. If one or more of these resources become completely exhausted, the printer will not operate until the problem is resolved. Presently, the only way to monitor the printer resources is to travel to the location of each printer and observe that printer and any display on that printer. Thus, monitoring the status of these printer resources is tedious in a network environment, because the printers can be located in a plurality of locations remote from the system administrator.
This invention provides a method and apparatus for dynamic, preventive monitoring of printer resources and for centralizing the supervision of printer resources.
This invention further provides a graphical user interface window that allows the system administrator to view and manage these resources for one or more output devices remotely from the various output devices.
This invention also provides a set of graphical user interface windows to notify the system administrator, and possibly end users, when the status of one of the output devices changes, and of the changed attribute.
Dynamic, preventive monitoring is accomplished by a print management system that dynamically monitors the printer resources and sends warning messages to system administrators, end users, and/or vendors when a printer resource falls below a predetermined threshold. Thus, the problem could be investigated by the administrator, user, or vendor, and resolved prior to the printer resource becoming entirely exhausted.
Additionally, the printer resources can be monitored from a single, centralized location, such as a graphical user interface window providing a control panel on a client being used by the system administrator. Graphical user interface windows providing printer resource warnings can also be electronically displayed on the clients being used by the end users, the system operators, and/or vendors.
These graphical user interface windows can provi
Fan Shengkuo
Fung Joseph
Nakajima Yasuo
Tan Shee-Yen
Kuji Xerox Co. Ltd.
Oliff & Berridg,e PLC
Popovici Dov
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