Office information system having a device which provides an operational message of the system when a specific event occurs

• US 7,146,111 B2
• Filed: 07/06/2005
• Issued: 12/05/2006
• Est. Priority Date: 01/08/1999
• Status: Expired due to Fees

• Current Assignee: Ricoh Company Limited
• Original Assignee: Ricoh Company Limited
• Inventors: Sakuramata, Yoshifumi, Sakayori, Tetsuya, Kojima, Yuichi, Muroi, Tetsuya, Fujimoto, Jun-Ichiroh, Bin, Lu, Ariyoshi, Takashi, Takami, Junichi, Kato, Yoshinaga, Kitagawa, Hiroo
• Primary Examiner(s): TRAN, HOAN H
• Application Number:
  US11/174,599
• Publication Number:
  US 20050246604A1
• Time in Patent Office: 517 Days
• Field of Search: 399/8, 399/9, 399/11, 399/18, 399/21, 399/24, 399/29, 399/31, 702/183, 702/186
• US Class Current: 399/9
• CPC Class Codes: G03G 15/502 relating to the structure of the control menu, e.g. pop-up menus, help screens
• CPC Class Codes: G03G 15/5079 for maintenance
• CPC Class Codes: G03G 15/55 Self-diagnostics; Malfunction or lifetime display
• CPC Class Codes: G03G 2215/00109 Remote control of apparatus, e.g. by a host
• CPC Class Codes: G06F 11/0733 in a data processing system embedded in an image processing device, e.g. printer, facsimile, scanner
• CPC Class Codes: G06F 11/0748 in a remote unit communicating with a single-box computer node experiencing an error/fault remote testing G06F11/2294
• CPC Class Codes: G06F 11/2294 by remote test

Abstract

An office information system having a device which provides a user with an operational message of the system is disclosed. In an embodiment of the office information system, a path record storage device stores a plurality of path records related to components of the system, each path record indicating a locating path needed to reach a location of a specific one of the components in the system when a failure related to the specific one of the components occurs. A failure location detecting device detects a location of a component in the system when a failure related to the component occurs. A reached location determining device reads a path record from the path record storage device when the location of the failure is detected, and determines a currently reached location in the system based on the path indicated by the path record. A message device generates, when the reached location is determined, an operational message needed for recovering the failure at a subsequent location in the path following the reached location.

Claims

1. An office information system comprising:

a communication device linked to a remote terminal via a network for telecommunications between the system and the remote terminal;

an information processing device which reconstructs an information transmitted to the system by the remote terminal via the network; and

a message device which supplies a message to the communication device, so that the message is transmitted to the remote terminal via the network.

2. The office information system according to claim 1, wherein the message indicates that an error occurs at the system when reconstructing an information transmitted to the system by the remote terminal.

3. The office information system according to claim 2, wherein the information transmitted to the system by the remote terminal is an image.

4. The office information system according to claim 1, wherein the message device supplies the message to the communication device when an error occurs at the system when reconstructing an information transmitted to the system by the remote terminal.

5. The office information system according to claim 1, further comprising an image-quality evaluation device which produces a result of evaluation of quality of an image transmitted to the system by the remote terminal.

6. The office information system according to claim 5, wherein the message device supplies the message to the communication device when the image is determined as being defective by the image-quality evaluation device.

7. The office information system according to claim 1, wherein the message device supplies, when an image reconstructed from an information transmitted to the system by the remote terminal is determined as being defective in image quality, the message to the communication device.