Title of Invention

A METHOD TO FORWARD FACSIMILE DOCUMENTS TO OTHER RENDERING DEVICES

Abstract

This invention explains a method of forwarding incoming facsimile documents to other rendering devices comprising the steps of receiving a facsimile document by the facsimile device, maintaining a table in the facsimile device, using any specific criteria to decide where to render the document and rendering the job to another rendering device according to the said criteria. According to the method proposed in the present invention, the facsimile device which receives the facsimile and the rendering device to which the document is assigned for rendering are connected to the same computer network.

Full Text

FIELD OF INVENTION This invention relates in general to facsimile communication device. Further, this invention uses the concept of geographically locating a printer device and remotely printing a document. This invention is applicable for any generic system consisting of a fax receiver and a plurality of network printers including any office network that is covered by a LAN. More particularly, this invention relates to a method to forward incoming facsimile documents to other rendering devices. DESCRIPTION OF THE RELATED ART The following related art describes a method of printing a document at a service provider who is geographically close to a recipient. The US patent numbered 6,659,662 titled "Internet distribution of print job to multiple print shops based on geographic location of document recipients" describes an invention which is mainly meant for broadcasting a message from a client and printing the same on different print service providers who gives a time/cost advantage in delivering the same to a particular client. The said US patent proposes a system that includes a plurality of print service providers and a print job oversight and analysis centre. The print job oversight and analysis center is adapted to, in response to receiving a job requiring printing and delivering documents, determining geographic locations of recipients of the documents and selecting a subset of the print service providers to print the documents and send the documents to the recipients. Each of the print service providers in the subset of print service providers prints documents for a subset of the recipients. The documents are apportioned among the subset of print service providers based on the geographic locations of the recipients of the documents so as to coordinate delivery time from the subset of print service providers to the recipients. The user who wants to send a message to multiple clients, contacts a print service provider and sends his document to that particular provider using one amongst several methods such as direct submission, phone call or facsimile. The provider then makes a database search to map internet printing shops and the final clients who needs to obtain the texts. The user preference, time and cost are the main ip to this search. The provider uses store and forward to reach the final clients. The print is finally delivered to the client by the local print service provider. Even though the techniques applied in the above described arts achieve their purpose there are a number of drawbacks. In the existing art, a central server is always used which is dedicated for re-routing the jobs and internet service providers are made use of. This means that the central service provider does not cover a system which can be the final receiver. The system is not capable of directly controlling a networked printing device without using a service provider. The algorithm uses many parameters which become redundant which institute LAN/WAN. Due to same reason, there is a need for a large database for the algorithm to work efficiently. The system does not speak about an effective intimation method to alert a final client (which is very important in an office environment) about the receipt of the document. Further, the system does not provide a user with the capabilities of selecting a multiple preferences for final printer to be used. Also, the system is not capable of deciding the queue length at the client printer and taking independent decisions based on that. This is an important parameter to be considered in any office environment, where the user might have set preference for a second server which might be free at the very moment. SUMMARY OF THE INVENTION The primary object of this invention is to invent a method to forward incoming facsimile documents to other rendering devices instead of printing the same at by the facsimile device itself. It is another object of this invention to invent a method to forward incoming facsimile documents to other rendering devices. it is a further object of this invention to provide a method to forward incoming facsimile documents based on recipient indicated on the documents and sender"s address. It is another object of this invention to provide a method to forward incoming facsimile documents based on geographic location of recipient. The present invention proposes a method to print facsimile documents received by a facsimile machine on rendering devices other than the facsimile machine"s own rendering device. The present invention proposes the said method to forward incoming facsimile documents to other rendering devices where forwarding of incoming facsimile documents could be based on recipient indicated on the documents, sender"s address, geographic location of the recipient, etc. Accordingly, the present invention comprises a method of forward incoming facsimile documents to other rendering devices comprising the steps of: (a) receiving a document by the facsimile device; (b) determining about the probable recipient of the incoming facsimile document on the basis of a table maintained in the facsimile device; (c) deciding where to render the document; and (d) rendering the job to another rendering device accordingly. other advantages and features of the invention will become more clearly apparent from the following description of the embodiments of the invention given as non-restrictive example only and represented in the accompanying drawings. BRIEF DESCRIPTION OF THE ACCOMPANYING DRAWINGS Figure 1 is a diagrammatic representation of scenario discussed in related art as available in the US patent document no. 6,659,662 Figure 2 shows steps followed in the related art as available in the US patent document no. 6,659,662 Figure 3 shows an arrangement with respect to the present invention. DETAILED DESCRIPTION OF THE INVENTION A preferred embodiment of the present invention will now be explained with reference to the accompanying drawings. It should be understood however that the disclosed embodiment is merely exemplary of the invention, which may be embodied in various forms. The following description and drawings are not to be construed as limiting the invention and numerous specific details are described to provide a thorough understanding of the present invention, as the basis for the claims and as a basis for teaching one skilled in the art how to make and/or use the invention. However in certain instances, well-known or conventional details are not described in order not to unnecessarily obscure the present invention in detail. Figure 1 is a simplified block diagram that illustrates distribution of print jobs to print shops based on the geographic location of document recipients. A print shop is a provider of printing services. A print job originates with a print customer 14. Print customer 14 contacts print job oversight center 11 with a print job request. For example, print customer 14 contacts print job oversight center 11 through the internet 20, for example by interaction with a web page or sending an electronic mail (e-mail) message. Alternatively, print customer 14 can contact print job oversight centre 11 through an in-person visit, a phone call, a facsimile transmission (fax) and so on. Print job oversight centre 11 uses print job analysis function 12 to determine which print job shop to use in order to perform the actual printing. Multiple print shops may be used for print jobs that require distribution to recipients over a wide geographic area. In making determinations, print job analysis function 12 uses a print shop database 13 that gives information about print shops. The information stored within print shop database 13 includes, for example, pricing information, geographic location of the print shop, and estimated delivery information for mailings. For example, print job oversight centre 11, print job analysis function 12 and print shop database 13 are implemented within a single computing system 34. A memory 32 of the computing system is used to store print shop database 13 and programs that implement print job analysis 12 and print job oversight 11. A processor 33 of computing system 34 is used to run the programs that implement the function of print job oversight centre 11 and print job analysis function 12. Connection with internet 20 is performed through a network interface 35 of computing system 34. The estimated delivery information allows coordination of delivery time for print jobs with recipients that are distributed over a wide geographic area. This is illustrated in figure 1 where recipients located geographically near print shop 15 are represented by a recipient 21, a recipient 22 and a recipient 23. Recipients located geographically near print shop 16 are represented by a recipient 24 and a recipient 25. Recipients located geographically near print shop 17 are represented by a recipient 26, a recipient 27 and a recipient 28. Recipients located geographically near print shop 18 are represented by a recipient 29, a recipient 30 and a recipient 31. Figure 2 is a simplified flowchart that illustrates print job analysis performed prior to distribution of print jobs to print shops based on the geographic location of document recipients. In a step 41 the print job analysis starts. In a step 42 a ■ecipient list for the print job is reviewed. The recipient list can include one ■ecipient for the job up to many thousands or even millions of recipients. In the step 43 a determination is made as to whether any recipients have specified print shops. For example, when the only recipient is the print customer, the print customer may desire to specify a local print shop to perform the job. The print customer may also have one or more preferred print shops to perform the work. Alternatively, the customer may perform its own analysis to select print shops to perform job portions and deliver to specified recipients. Whatever reason the customer has, step 43 allows the customer to select print shops for all or any portion of the recipients. If some or all of the recipients have specified print shops, in step 44, documents to go to recipients for which, print shops have been specified are assigned to the specified print shops. In step 45, a check is made to see if there are any remaining recipients for which print shops have not been specified. If there are no remaining recipients for which print shops have not been specified, in step 50, an order is prepared to send the documents to the assigned print shops. If in step 43 no recipients have specified print shops or if in step 45 there are remaining recipients for which print shops have not been specified, then in a step 46 information on currently available print shops is obtained, for example, from print shop database 13. The information includes, for example, pricing information, geographic location of the print shop, and estimated delivery information for mailings. For example, geographic location is indicated by the mailing address of the recipient. The estimated delivery information, for example, can list estimated delivery time for each zip code. If the print shop is not in the United States, the estimated delivery time can be listed based on some other part of the address (city, province, other mailing code, etc.) as a substitute for zip codes. Alternatively, the estimated delivery information may include only those zip codes of regions close to the print shop. In this case, all the zip codes are divided up and assigned to the closest (i.e., closest in delivery time) print shop. In a step 47, a check is made to see whether price and/or scheduling are a consideration when selecting print shops. When there are not price or scheduling considerations, in a step 48 documents are assigned to print shops based on geography. The goal is typically to divide the documents among print shops in such a way that the documents will arrive to each recipient as soon as possible. When there are price and/or scheduling considerations, in a step 49 documents are assigned to print shops based on geography, scheduling and/or price. In step 50, once all documents for the print job have been assigned to print shops, an order is prepared to send the documents to the assigned print shops. In a step 51, the print job analysis is complete. Figure 3 shows an arrangement with respect to the present invention. Organisations usually do not have an individual facsimile device for each member. Facsimile documents received at a common device must be distributed to the individuals they are addressed to. This is a cumbersome and time-consuming task that may involve extra administrative staff; otherwise the recipients themselves must waste precious time in going to the facsimile device and collecting their received documents each time. A detailed description of the Figure-3 is provided here: As can be seen from the above mentioned figure, the fax machine uses a table to decide the destination printer for each fax received. The decision database is populated either by the users or the administrator. The content and the format of the table are only examples and not meant to limit the scope of the invention. Once the fax is received, the fields specified are checked for the match. If a match is found, the printer corresponding to the match is contacted and the print job is delivered to them. The printer can be specified as an IP number or a physical location. If a physical location is specified, the fax receiver contacts a mapping server (Phy. Loc. DB) to obtain the details of the printer(s) available in that location. The information obtained from the printer is then used to print the fax at that location. The physical location map server is beyond the scope of this IP. But one approach could be to update the same with the help of RFID tag detection using a cluster of distributed sensors. Another simpler approach could be to update them manually. But the idea is to have easily maintainable central database, with the possible added advantage of the same getting updated automatically if possible. Another point worthy of explanation is the tag. This could specify a location of a rectangular area where the fax machine can carryout the OCR to obtain a valid alphanumeric string. The string can then be checked for matches and if found, the printing job will be transferred to the corresponding printer. Moreover, currently all documents are printed at the rendering device built into the facsimile device. If the rendering device jams, runs out of consumables or malfunctions, no facsimile documents received can be printed. According to the method of the present invention, the facsimile device on receiving a facsimile document, instead of rendering it, transfers the document to another rendering device using the computer network to which the facsimile device and the rendering device are connected to. A table is maintained in the facsimile device to determine whether an incoming facsimile document should be rendered locally or transferred to a particular rendering device on the network. This table is configured by the system administrator using the configuration methods available on the device, such as user interface, web interface and network interface. Table is configured manually. But if the device is network enabled, the user can make it available on a convenient network server. When an incoming facsimile document is received, the facsimile device can use one of the following criteria to decide where to render the document: 1. Round robin: All rendering devices get a percentage of the job in the ratio of their capacities. 2. Source based: The facsimile device can determine the source address based on caller ID, source Internet (IP) address, sender email address, etc. Then it can look up in the table as to documents from which range of source addresses need to be rendered at which device. 3. Addressing based: A number of facsimile documents are sent with "kind attention" or "To" with a name marked on the top. This text can be interpreted by the facsimile device using character recognition technology. A subject line such as "Resume" can also be interpreted. Watermark images indicating where the document originated, or a "from" line with the sender"s name in text, can also be interpreted. Then the device can refer in the said table and determine the preferred rendering device for a particular recipient, subject or sender, and forward the job accordingly. When the user creates the table, he enters each criterion and then configures the printer to be used for each criterion. For example, the administrator can configure the fax that comes for a specific mailbox to be printed at a particular printer which is close to the owner of the box. Another example will be that a manager can configure all faxes with the word "Resume" in subject line to be printed at a printer near his personal assistant. There are systems that can geographically locate a printer. Samsung (Korea) is currently working on one such system. The fax device can be made to take the 10 input from the same and decide a geographical location of a printer before printing the document. This will be helpful in printing the data at the correct physical location even when the particular printer is moved from one physical location to another. The facsimile device can send the recipient name to the server, which can use geographical locations to determine the rendering device closest to the recipient"s desk. This invention helps in saving valuable time by rendering incoming facsimile documents as close as possible to the actual recipient"s desk. It also helps prevent loss of facsimile documents by allowing the facsimile device to send the document for rendering to another rendering device when it is itself incapable of doing so, or wants to conserve its consumables for other more important documents. The administrator can decide which faxes are more important (Based on the subject, recipient etc) and should be printed locally even when the consumable level is low. (There are well known methods of determining the consumable level that are used in modern printers). It will also be obvious to those skilled in the art that other control methods and apparatuses can be derived from the combinations of the various methods and apparatuses of the present invention as taught by the description and the accompanying drawings and these shall also be considered within the scope of the present invention. Further, description of such combinations and variations is therefore omitted above. It should also be noted that the host for storing the applications include but not limited to a computer, printer or a multi function device. Although the present invention has been fully described in connection with the preferred embodiments thereof with reference to the accompanying drawings, it is to be noted that various changes and modifications are possible and are apparent to those skilled in the art. Such changes and modifications are to be understood as included within the scope of the present invention as defined by the appended 11 claims unless they depart there from. Although three criteria have been described above to determine the rendering device for the incoming document, it is to be understood that a combination of the above three criteria, or any other similar criteria, may be used to determine the rendering device for the incoming document. WE CLAIM 1. A method to forward incoming facsimile documents to other rendering devices comprising the steps of: (a) receiving a document by the facsimile device; (b) detemiining the probable recipient of the incoming facsimile document on the basis of a table maintained in the facsimile device; (c) deciding where to render the document; and (d) rendering the job to another rendering device accordingly. 2. A method as claimed in claim 1 wherein the facsimile device and the other rendering devices are interconnected using a computer network. 3. A method as claimed in claim 1 wherein instead of rendering the facsimile document by itself, the facsimile device transfers the document to another rendering device using the computer network. 4. A method as claimed in claim 1 wherein a table is maintained in the facsimile device to determine whether an incoming facsimile document is rendered locally or transferred to a particular rendering device on the network. 5. A method as claimed in claim 1 wherein the said table is configured by the system administrator using the configuration methods available on the device, such as user interface, web interface and/or network Interface. 6. A method as claimed in claim 1 wherein the criteria used by the facsimile device to decide where to render the document is round robin. 7. A method as claimed in claims 1 and 6 wherein in the said criteria of round robin, all rendering devices get a percentage of the job in the ratio of their 13 capacities. 8. A method as claimed in claim 1 wherein the criteria used by the facsimile device to decide where to render the document is source based. 9. A method as claimed in claims 1 and 8 wherein in the said criteria of source based, facsimile device refers in the table as to documents from which range of source addresses need to be rendered at which device. 10. A method as claimed in claims 1, 8 and 9 wherein in the said criteria of source based, the facsimile device determines the source address based on caller ID, source Internet (IP) address, sender email address, etc. 11. A method as claimed in claim 1 wherein the criteria used by the facsimile device to decide where to render the document is recipient address based. 12. A method as claimed in claims 1 and 11 wherein in the said criteria of recipient address based, the named mark is interpreted by the facsimile device using character recognition technology. 13. A method as claimed in claims 1,11 and 12 wherein in the said criteria of recipient address based, the named mark can be "kind attention", "To", etc. 14. A method as claimed in claims 1,11, 12 and 13 wherein in the said criteria of recipient address based, a subject line such as "Resume" can be interpreted. 15. A method as claimed in any of the preceding claims wherein in any of the said criteria, watermark images indicating where the document originated, or from line with the sender"s name in text, can be interpreted. 16. A method as claimed in any of the preceding claims wherein in any of the 14 said criteria, the facsimilo device refers in the table and determines the preferred rendering device for a partioular recipient, subject or sender, and forwards the job accordingly. 17. A method as claimed in any of the preceding claims wherein loss of facsimile documents is prevented by allowing the facsimile device to send the document for rendering to another rendering device. 18. A method to forward incoming facsimile documents to other rendering devices such as substantially herein described particularly with reference to the accompanying drawings.

Documents:

1234-che-2004 abstract-duplicate.pdf

1234-che-2004 abstract.pdf

1234-che-2004 claims-duplicate.pdf

1234-che-2004 claims.pdf

1234-che-2004 correspondece-others.pdf

1234-che-2004 correspondece-po.pdf

1234-che-2004 description(complete)-duplicate.tif

1234-che-2004 description(complete).pdf

1234-che-2004 drawings-duplicate.pdf

1234-che-2004 drawings.pdf

1234-che-2004 form-1.pdf

1234-che-2004 form-13.pdf

1234-che-2004 form-19.pdf

1234-che-2004 form-26.pdf