Printing system and charging method thereof

Details Printing system and charging method thereof Printing system and charging method thereof

1998-05-21

2001-03-27

Mancuso, Joseph (Department: 2624)

Facsimile and static presentation processing

Static presentation processing

Communication

C358S001140, C358S001130

Reexamination Certificate

active

06208428

ABSTRACT:

BACKGROUND OF THE INVENTION
The present invention claims priority from Japanese Patent Application No.9-130203 filed May 21, 1997, which is incorporated herein by reference.
1. Field of the Invention
The present invention relates to a printing system for monitoring and controlling a printing operation of a printer, a setting thereof and a charging by an upper computer and, particularly, to a charging processing thereof
2. Description of Related Art
Japanese Patent Application Laid-open No. Hei 1-241447 discloses a technique for charging a cost on a user of a printer, in which the printer is connected through an input/output channel controller to a host computer and a charging of cost is performed on the side of the printer and the charging data on the side of the printer is transferred to the host computer through the input/output channel controller.
A printing system disclosed in the above mentioned Japanese Patent Application is shown in FIG.
1
. In the printing system shown in
FIG. 1
, a host computer
5
exchanges data with an input/output interface
71
through an input/output channel
6
and an input/output channel controller
70
of a printer
7
.
The printer
7
includes a central processing unit (CPU)
75
for generally controlling respective portions thereof, a read-only-memory (ROM)
72
for storing a process control program for the CPU
75
, a random-access-memory (RAM)
73
for storing various data, flag information and results of operations, etc., of the CPU
75
, a data page buffer (DB)
78
for storing the data output from the CPU
75
every page unit, a character pattern generator
77
for converting character codes in the data page buffer
78
into character pattern and supplying it to an output page buffer (PB)
79
, an output device
80
for printing a dot information of the output page buffer
79
, a disk
76
for storing a charging information and a console
74
for inputting a practical printing information or style and a content of data transferred to the host computer
5
.
The input/output interface
71
includes an input/output buffer (IOB) for receiving and transmitting the transfer data and the RAM
73
is provided with an area for a start register (SR) and an end register (ER) for respectively storing a start day and an end day of a charging which are input from the console
74
as an instruction means and to be transferred to the host computer
5
and an area for a date counter (DC) used to count service days.
The charging information is accumulated every time when the output device
80
performs an output operation and stored in the disk
76
. When a charging information read request is input from the host computer
5
to the printer
7
, a block of data is read out from the disk
76
, set in the input/output buffer of the input/output interface
71
and transferred from the input/output buffer to the host computer
5
.
In a case where a charging is performed every producer of printing data or every section of printing data producers by the charging method of the above mentioned printing system, the printer itself must be provided with means for recognizing the printing data producers and/or the sections of printing data producers and means for storing the accumulated number of printing sheets (charging information) for every printing data producer or every section of printing data producers, resulting in an increase of cost of the printer.
That is, in the conventional printing system, only the start day and the end day are set and the charging information is obtained within the term defined by these days. Therefore, in order to obtain the charging information of every printing data producer or every section of printing data producers, it is necessary to set the start day and the end day for every printing data producer or every section of printing data producers and to calculate the charging information of every printing data producer or every section of printing data producers. Consequently, it is necessary to provide hardware or memory areas such as RAM's and/or disks separately in the printer, causing the cost of the printer to be increased.
Further, in, for example, a case where a printer is used commonly on a network, it is necessary to identify respective terminals accessing the printer and to calculate the charging information of the respective printers. Further, since a programming interface for totally handling the charging information is not provided, it is impossible to improve the operability of the printer in the network environment.
SUMMARY OF THE INVENTION
In view of the above mentioned problem of the conventional printing system, an object of the present invention is to provide a printing system, a charging method of the printing system and a recording medium recorded with a charging control program of the printing system, which can easily obtain a charging information of every printing data producer or every section of printing data producers without increase of cost of a printer and a higher rank device.
Another object of the present invention is to provide a printing system, a charging method of the printing system and a recording medium recorded with a charging control program of the printing system, which can improve the operability of a printer in a network environment.
According to a first aspect of the present invention, a printing system including a higher rank device and a printer having a total print number counter for counting the number of prints according to an instruction from the higher rank device is featured by that the higher rank device comprises acquiring means for acquiring values of the total print number counter from the printer before a transfer of a printing data from the higher rank device to the printer and after a completion of printing of the printing data, storage means for storing the values of the total print number counter acquired by the acquiring means correspondingly to a name of a printing data producer attached to the printing data, calculator means for calculating an accumulated number of prints of every printing data producer on the basis of the value of the total print number counter accumulated in the storage means after the printing of the printing data is completed and recording means for recording a result of calculation of the calculator means correspondingly to the name of the printing data producer.
According to a second aspect of the present invention, a charging method of a printing system including a higher rank device and a printer having a total print number counter for counting the number of prints according to an instruction from the higher rank device is featured by that the higher rank device executes the steps of acquiring values of the total print number counter from the printer before a transfer of a printing data from the higher rank device to the printer and after a completion of printing of the printing data, accumulating the acquired values of the total print number counter correspondingly to a name of a printing data producer attached to the printing data, calculating an accumulated number of prints of every printing data producer on the basis of the accumulated value of the total print number counter after the printing of the printing data is completed and recording a result of calculation correspondingly to the name of the printing data producer.
According to a third aspect of the present invention, a recording medium recorded with a charging control program of a printing system including a higher rank device and a printer having a total print number counter for counting the number of prints according to an instruction from the higher rank device is featured by that the charging control program instructs the higher rank device to execute the steps of acquiring values of the total print number counter from the printer before a transfer of a printing data from the higher rank device to the printer and after a completion of printing of the printing data, accumulating the acquired values of the total print number counter correspondingly to a name of a printin

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