Cloud printer with a common user print experience

• US 9,817,622 B2
• Filed: 01/20/2010
• Issued: 11/14/2017
• Est. Priority Date: 01/20/2010
• Status: Active Grant

• Current Assignee: Hewlett-Packard Development Company, L.P. (HP Inc.)
• Original Assignee: Hewlett-Packard Development Company, L.P. (HP Inc.)
• Inventors: Kamath, Harish B, Solur, Sridhar, Pitkin, David William, Iyer, Vss
• Primary Examiner(s): Demeter, Hilina K
• Application Number:
  US13/387,029
• Publication Number:
  US 20120140285A1
• Time in Patent Office: 2,855 Days
• Field of Search: None
• 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 3/122 with regard to computing resources, e.g. memory, CPU
• CPC Class Codes: G06F 3/1226 Discovery of devices having required properties
• CPC Class Codes: G06F 3/1228 Printing driverless or using generic drivers
• CPC Class Codes: G06F 3/1231 Device related settings, e.g. IP address, Name, Identification
• CPC Class Codes: G06F 3/1268 Job submission, e.g. submitting print job order or request not the print data itself
• CPC Class Codes: G06F 3/1287 via internet
• CPC Class Codes: G06F 3/1288 in client-server-printer device configuration
• CPC Class Codes: G06F 3/1292 Mobile client, e.g. wireless printing

Abstract

One embodiment is a portable electronic device that prints a document to a printer. A common user print experience is displayed regardless of a type of operating system installed on the portable electronic device.

Claims

1. A method for performing print operations, the method being performed by one or more processors of a server computing system and comprising:

receiving, at the server computing system, from a portable electronic device, a document to be printed;

receiving, at the server computing system, from the portable electronic device, information indicating a desired geographical location for printing the document;

based on the information indicating the desired geographical location, locating, by the one or more processors of the server computing system, a plurality of available printers for printing the document;

providing, from the server computing system to the portable electronic device, a list of the available printers;

in response to receiving a selection of one of the available printers from the portable electronic device, transferring the document from the server computing system to the selected printer for printing the document; and

providing a notification, to the portable electronic device, indicating a location of the selected printer.

2. The method of claim 1, further comprising:

receiving format data about the document to be printed, and

prior to transferring the document to the selected printer, converting, by the server computing system, the document into a print-ready format according to properties of the selected printer.

3. The method of claim 1, wherein each of the plurality of printers is registered with the server computing system.

4. The method of claim 3, further comprising:

maintaining information about the plurality of printers, the information including a name and properties for each of the plurality of printers.

5. The method of claim 4, wherein the information about the plurality of printers further includes location information corresponding to a respective location for each of the plurality of printers.

6. The method of claim 1, wherein locating the plurality of available printers for printing the document is further based on a current location of the portable electronic device.

7. The method of claim 1, further comprising:

designating the selected printer as a default printer for the portable electronic device.

8. A server computing system comprising:

one or more processors; and

one or more memory resources storing instructions that, when executed by the one or more processors, cause the server computing system to;

receive, from a mobile computing device, a document to be printed;

receive, from the mobile computing device, information indicating a desired geographical location for printing the document;

based on the information indicating the desired geographical location, locate available printers for printing the document;

provide a list of the available printers to the mobile computing device;

in response to receipt of a selection of one of the available printers, transfer the document from the server computing system to the selected printer; and

provide a notification, to the mobile computing device, indicating a location of the selected printer.

9. The system of claim 8, wherein the instructions are to cause the server computing system to:

receive format data about the document to be printed, and

prior to transferring the document to the selected printer, convert the document into a print-ready format according to properties of the selected printer.

10. The system of claim 8, wherein each of the plurality of printers is registered with the server computing system.

11. The system of claim 8, wherein the instructions, when executed by the one or more processors, are to cause the server computing system to:

maintain information about the plurality of printers, the information including a name and properties for each of the plurality of printers.

12. The system of claim 11, wherein the information about the plurality of printers further includes location information corresponding to a respective location for each of the plurality of printers.

13. The system of claim 8, wherein to locate the plurality of printers for printing the document, the instructions are to further cause the server computing system to locate printers that are within a predetermined proximity of a current location of the mobile computing device.

14. A non-transitory computer readable medium storing instructions that when executed by a processor of a server computing system cause the server computing system to:

receive, from a portable electronic device, a document to be printed;

receive, from the portable electronic device, information indicating a desired geographical location for printing the document;

determine, from a user account associated with a user of the portable electronic device, a plurality of printers within the desired geographical location;

provide a list of the plurality of printers to the portable electronic device;

in response to receipt of a selection of one of the printers from the portable electronic device, transfer the document to the selected printer; and

provide a notification, to the portable electronic device, indicating a location of the selected printer.

15. The non-transitory computer readable medium of claim 14, wherein the instructions are to cause the server computing system to:

receive, from the portable electronic device, format data about the document to be printed, and

prior to transferring the document to the selected printer, convert the document into a print-ready format according to properties of the selected printer.

16. The non-transitory computer readable medium of claim 14, wherein each of the plurality of printers is registered with the server computing system.

17. The non-transitory computer readable medium of claim 16, further comprising wherein the instructions are to cause the server computing system to:

maintain information about the plurality of printers, the information including a name and properties for each of the plurality of printers.

18. The non-transitory computer readable medium of claim 17, wherein the information about the plurality of printers further includes location information corresponding to a respective location for each of the plurality of printers.

19. The non-transitory computer readable medium of claim 18, wherein to locate the plurality of printers, the instructions are to cause the server computing system to locate printers that are within a predetermined proximity of a current location of the portable electronic device.

20. The non-transitory computer readable medium of claim 19, wherein the instructions are to cause the server computing system to:

designate the selected printer as being a default printer for the portable electronic device.