| US 7,528,974 B2 | ||
| Methods and apparatus for providing universal print services and asynchronous message services | ||
| Guy Gecht, Los Altos, Calif. (US); Chirag Bakshi, San Jose, Calif. (US); and Sanjay Kamble, Santa Clara, Calif. (US) | ||
| Assigned to Electronics for Imaging, Inc., Foster City, Calif. (US) | ||
| Filed on Feb. 28, 2003, as Appl. No. 10/377,193. | ||
| Prior Publication US 2004/0185882 A1, Sep. 23, 2004 | ||
| Int. Cl. G06F 3/12 (2006.01) | ||
| U.S. Cl. 358—1.15 [455/456.6] | 25 Claims |
| 14. A system for providing print services, the system comprising:
a content sourcing platform coupled via a gateway to a plurality of unique wireless systems, each wireless system associated
with a plurality of mobile devices, the gateway enabling the content sourcing platform to communicate via any of the wireless
systems to the mobile devices associated with those wireless systems;
a plurality of printing devices coupled to the content sourcing platform via a printing network, forming networked printers;
a means for communicating at least one data alert message from the content sourcing platform to the mobile devices using an
asynchronous data alert message service, wherein the at least one data alert message comprises an alert message comprising
an alert regarding the availability of a printable document and a means for initiating the printing of the printable document
with a print request;
a means for selecting at least one printing device to generate a polling request and print the printable document, wherein
the step of identifying at least one printing device comprises:
generating a document ID by the content sourcing platform, the document ID being uniquely associated with the printable document,
providing the document ID to a user of at least one of the mobile devices;
accepting the input of the document ID, by the user, into at least one of the system printers, forming a selected printer;
and
transmitting a polling request by the selected printer to the printing network;
a means for receiving at least one print request at the content sourcing platform from at least one of the mobile devices
using the asynchronous data alert message service; and
a means for sending the printable document from the content sourcing platform to the printing network comprising a spooling
server adapted to: (a) receive and store the requested document, (b) receive over a network a polling request from a printer
polling device associated with the print device, the polling request identifying the requested document stored at the spooling
server, and (c) transmit the requested document to the printer polling device in response to the polling request.
|