Data output control device and portable terminal

• US 7,054,920 B2
• Filed: 09/12/2001
• Issued: 05/30/2006
• Est. Priority Date: 01/12/2000
• Status: Active Grant

• Current Assignee: Seiko Epson Corporation (Seiko Group)
• Original Assignee: Seiko Epson Corporation (Seiko Group)
• Inventors: Taniguchi, Shinya, Aoki, Mikio
• Primary Examiner(s): Maung, Zarni
• Assistant Examiner(s): Tiv, Backhean
• Application Number:
  US09/949,669
• Publication Number:
  US 20020049870A1
• Time in Patent Office: 1,721 Days
• Field of Search: 709/205, 709/213, 709/217, 709/226, 709/229, 710/5, 710/65
• US Class Current: 709/218
• CPC Class Codes: G06F 3/1204 resulting in reduced user or operator actions, e.g. presetting, automatic actions, using hardware token storing data
• CPC Class Codes: G06F 3/1226 Discovery of devices having required properties
• CPC Class Codes: G06F 3/1232 Transmitting printer device capabilities, e.g. upon request or periodically
• CPC Class Codes: G06F 3/1239 Restricting the usage of resources, e.g. usage or user levels, credit limit, consumables, special fonts
• CPC Class Codes: G06F 3/126 Job scheduling, e.g. queuing, determine appropriate device
• CPC Class Codes: G06F 3/1292 Mobile client, e.g. wireless printing
• CPC Class Codes: H04L 67/04 specially adapted for terminals or networks with limited capabilities; specially adapted for terminal portability
• CPC Class Codes: H04L 67/51 Discovery or management thereof, e.g. service location protocol [SLP] or web services
• CPC Class Codes: H04L 67/52 specially adapted for the location of the user terminal
• CPC Class Codes: H04L 67/56 Provisioning of proxy services store-and-forward switching systems in data switching networks H04L12/54
• CPC Class Codes: H04L 67/568 Storing data temporarily at an intermediate stage, e.g. caching
• CPC Class Codes: H04L 67/59 Providing operational support to end devices by off-loading in the network or by emulation, e.g. when they are unavailable
• CPC Class Codes: H04L 69/329 in the application layer [OSI layer 7]
• CPC Class Codes: H04L 9/40 Network security protocols
• CPC Class Codes: H04W 4/00 Services specially adapted for wireless communication networks; Facilities therefor
• CPC Class Codes: H04W 64/00 Locating users or terminals or network equipment for network management purposes, e.g. mobility management

Abstract

The present invention to provides a data output control system and portable terminal suitably used for readily obtaining detailed information on a network.

The present invention can include data output control terminal communicably connects a user-owned portable terminal, printing devices situated at various locations for outputting data, and WWW servers via the Internet, data relating to data printing requests from the portable terminal is obtained from a WWW server, a printing device which is considered to be optimal for the user of the portable terminal to receive data from is selected from multiple printing devices, and the obtained data is output to the selected printing device. Further, guidance information, for guiding the user to the installation location where the printing device decided upon is installed, is transmitted to the portable terminal.

Claims

1. A data output control device, which communicably connects to a user-owned portable terminal which is portable and sends output requests for data, and a plurality of output terminals situated at various locations for outputting data, via a network, so as to receive data output requests from said portable terminal, and output data relating to said data output requests to said output terminals, comprising:

a data format conversion device that performs data format conversion that is carried out with a terminal different from the user-owned portable terminal;

a storage device that stores output terminal position data for specifying the output terminal installation location for each output terminal;

a selecting device that selects one of said plurality of output terminals;

a guidance data generating device that generates guidance data indicating guidance information for guiding the user of said portable terminal; and

an output device that outputs data relating to said data output request to the output terminal selected by said selecting device and also outputs guidance data generated by said guidance data generating device to said portable terminal;

said guidance data generating device generates guidance data indicating guidance information for guiding the user of said portable terminal to the location in which the output terminal selected by said selecting device is installed, based on the output terminal position data of said storing device.

2. The data output control device according to claim 1,

said guidance data generating device generates guidance data indicating guidance information for guiding the user of said portable terminal to the location in which the output terminal selected by said selecting device is installed with the position of said portable terminal as a reference, based on portable terminal position data for specifying the position of said portable terminal.

3. The data output control device according to claim 1,

said guidance information is map information for guiding the user of said portable terminal to the location in which the output terminal selected by said selecting device is installed.

4. The portable terminal using the data output control device according to claim 1, further comprising an output device that outputs said guidance information based on said guidance data.

5. The data output control device according to claim 1, said data format conversion device performs conversion to a data format that can be output by the output terminal and performs conversion to a data format that can be displayed by the user-owned portable terminal.