Title of Invention

FAX STATUS DISPLAY ON LIQUID CRYSTAL DISPLAY (LCD) OF AN MULTI FUNCTIONAL PRINTER (MFP)

Abstract The present invention relates to fax status display on the LCD of a Multi Functional Peripheral. The method includes sending a fax document from a sender MFP. The sender will be able to monitor the document and its status at real time. The real time updating status shows the status of the fax document at the receiving end. The status is displayed on a mimic display in the LCD of sender"s MFP. At the receiving end, once the fax document is received, the receiving MFP will send back additional information on the status of the fax document. This includes informing the sending side whether the fax document has been directly printed at the receiving side or it is stored in the memory of the receiving MFP.
Full Text FIELD OF THE INVENTION

The present invention generally relates to Multi Functional Peripherals (MFPs). More particularly the
present invention relates to display of fax status on LCD of an MFP.

DESCRIPTION OF RELATED ART

When a fax document is sent from a source fax machine such as a Multi Functional Peripheral (MFP) to a destination MFP, the status of the fax document being transmitted will be displayed at the sender side and the sender gets a confirmation report once the fax document has been successfully transmitted to the intended recipient. However, the sender does not receive any additional information about the status of the fax document once it is delivered. The sender has no idea about what are the further steps that have taken place on the fax document at the receiving side. Further, the sender does not know about the status of the fax document at the run time. The sender gets a notification message only once the fax document reaches the intended recipient.

This problem of sending the status of the fax document at real time has been solved by US patent application 2001000441. The patent application describes the transmission of information over global computer network such as the Internet, and in particular to. a method and system of sending information over the Internet in real-time from a fax machine. It provides a method for sending faxes over the Internet, in which the sender gets a confirmation immediately after sending the fax over a regular, uncontrolled Internet connection, and using standard modems or a Local Area Network (LAN) connection to the Internet. However, the method does not talk about displaying the status of the fax document on the source MFP. Further, the method does not provide any additional information on the status of the fax document. The present invention has been designed to address these needs.

SUMMARY OF THE INVENTION

It is therefore a primary object of the present invention to provide a method for displaying the status of a fax document by a mimic display on the LCD of a Multi Functional Peripheral (MFP).
Another object of the present invention is to display additional status information on the mimic display.

This includes displaying the status of the fax document both at the sender side and receiver side, number of pages sent by source MFP, number of pages received at the receiver side, number of pages that are stored in the memory or printed at the receiver side.

Accordingly, the present invention explains a method for displaying status information of a fax document on the display of a Multi Functional Peripheral (MFP) at run time, the method comprising:

a. sending a fax document from a sender MFP to a receiver MFP;
and

b. displaying status information on a mimic display on the LCD of the sender MFP, the status information being such as status of the fax document both at the sender side and receiver side, number of pages sent by the source MFP, number of pages received by the receiver MFP, number of pages that are stored in the memory of the receiver MFP, and number of pages printed at the receiver MFP.

These and other objects, features and advantages of the present invention will become more apparent from the ensuing drawings of the invention.

BRIEF DESCRIPTION OF THE ACCOMPANYING DRAWINGS

Figure 1 is a block diagram showing the communication between a sender MFP and a receiver MFP along with the additional information shared between them, in accordance with an embodiment of the present invention;

Figure 2 is a block diagram showing the existing method for transmission of a fax document;

Figure 3 depicts various phases in T.30 fax protocol;

Figure 4 depicts a flowchart for checking the status of the fax document at the receiving MFP, in accordance with an embodiment of the present invention;

Figure 5 depicts a flow chart illustrating the method for displaying the status of fax documents on the LCD of an MFP, in accordance with an embodiment of the present invention.

DETAILED DESCRIPTION OF THE INVENTION

The preferred embodiments of the present invention will now be explained. It should be understood however that the disclosed embodiments are merely exemplary of the invention, which may be embodied in various forms. The following drawing is 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.

According to the present invention, when a fax document is transmitted from a source Multi Functional Peripheral (MFP) to a destination MFP, the sender as well as the receiver is aware of the status of the fax document on the MFP LCD by means of mimic display. Further, the sender will be aware of the additional status information such as, whether the fax document that has been sent is stored in the memory of the destination MFP or printed in the destination MFP.

By reference herein a sender is the person who sends the fax document, receiver is the person who receives the fax document. Similarly, a sender MFP is the device from which the fax document is sent and a receiver MFP is the device that receives the fax document.

The method involves sending a fax document from a sender MFP. The sender will be able to monitor the document and its status at real time. The real time updating status shows the status of the fax document at the receiving end. The status is displayed on a mimic display in the LCD of sender's MFP. At the receiving end, once the fax document is received, the receiving MFP will send back additional information on the status of the fax document. This includes informing the sending side whether the fax document has been directly printed at the receiving side or it is stored in the memory of the receiving MFP.
In accordance with an embodiment of the present invention, additional information on the status of the fax document is sent using Non-Standard Facility. This has been explained in detail in conjunction with figure 3.

Figure 1 is a block diagram showing the communication between the sender MFP and the receiver MFP along with the additional information shared between them, in accordance with an embodiment of the present invention. The sender MFP and the receiver MFP are connected through a telephone line. Once a fax document is sent from the sender MFP, both the sender and receiver will be able to monitor the status of the fax document at real time. Further, the sender will be able to know the number of pages being received at the receiver side. Furthermore, the sender will also be able to know whether the sent fax is stored in the memory or printed at the receiver side.

Figure 2 is a block diagram showing the existing method for transmission of a fax document. The fax document is transmitted from the sender side MFP to the receiver side MFP through a fax modem. The fax document is firstly compressed based on the image standards and is then transmitted to the receiving side using Fax protocol, such as T.30 Protocol. This protocol has been explained in detail in conjunction with figure 3. Subsequently, at the receiving side, the compressed document is decompressed and sent to the receiver MFP.

Figure 3 depicts the various phases in T.30 fax protocol. The T.30 fax protocol contains a large state machine that controls the phase and position of a fax machine during transmission of the fax document. There are basically 5 different phases in a facsimile transmission.

• Phase A: (Call set-up) This phase includes the call establishment, when the transmitting and receiving units connect over the telephone line and recognize one another as fax machines. This is the start of the handshaking procedure.

• Phase B: Pre-message procedure for identifying and selecting the required facilities. This is the pre-message procedure where the answering machine identifies itself and describes its capabilities in a burst of digital information packed in frames conforming to the HDLC (High-level Data Link Control) standard.

• Phase C: (Message transmission) This is the fax transmission portion of the operation. This step consists of two parts: "C1" and "C2", which take place simultaneously. Phase C1 deals with synchronization, line monitoring, and problem detection.* Phase C2 includes data transmission (ITU-T Recommendation T.4 controls this).

• Phase D: (Post-message procedure) This phase begins once a page has been transmitted. Both the sender and receiver revert to using HDLC packets as during Phase B. If the sender has further pages to transmit, it sends an MPS (Multi Page Signal) frame, and the receiver replies with an MCF (Message Con-Firmed) along with Non-Standard Facility (NSF). NSF are capabilities that a particular fax manufacturer has built into a fax machine to distinguish products from each other.

Containing the information about the sent job is printed or it is stored in the memory of the sender side. Phase C recommences for the following page.

In phase D DFS_EOM (End of Message): Indicates to the receiver that there is more fax document to follow. The application returns to T.30 Phase B and negotiates parameters for the next page.
By default, incoming fax document is delimited by the reception of DFS_EOP from the transmitter. For example, if the FC_ENDDOC parameter is set to DFS_EOM, the incoming fax document is delimited on DFS_EOM as well as the default value of DFS_EOP.

When the receiver station receives DFS_EOM or DFS_EOP from the transmitter, fx_rcvfax() completes, returns a 0 (in synchronous mode) or a TFX_FAXRECV event is generated (in asynchronous mode), and control is returned to the application.

The application must then check the Phase D command using ATFX_PHDCMD() to determine if more fax pages will follow or if the last page of the fax has been stored (DFS_EOP). If there are more fax pages to follow, the application must issue another fx_rcvfax() function specifying a. different file for storage. When the last page of the fax has been stored, a DFS_EOP value is present indicating the end of fax reception.

• Phase E: (Call release) The call release portion. The side that transmitted last sends a DCN frame (a hangupframe) and hangs up without awaiting a response.

The use of these phases for transmission of fax documents has been explained in conjunction with figures 4 and 5.

Figure 4 depicts a flowchart for checking the status of the fax document at the receiving MFP, in accordance with an embodiment of the present invention.

When a fax document is sent from the source MFP to a receiver MFP, based on the call-setup phase (Phase A) of T.30 Fax protocol, during the call establishment process if there is an error in the fax line then immediately an error status will be sent to the sender intimating about the error. However, if the transmission line is error free, then the fax document will be sent to the receiver. Once the receiver MFP starts receiving the fax document, it is checked whether the complete fax document has been sent or not.

Once the receiver MFP has received all the data that has been sent by the sender, the method checks whether the received data is being printed in the receiver MFP or it is stored in the memory of the receiver MFP. Accordingly, the status of the fax document is sent to the sender MFP. As explained in figure 4, the post message procedure (Phase D) of T.30 fax protocol will send the status.

Figure 5 depicts a flow chart illustrating the method for displaying the status of fax documents on the LCD of an MFP, in accordance with an embodiment of the present invention. The method includes assigning a unique code for each status information. For example, fax document sending error, fax document printed at the receiver side, fax documents stored in the memory at the receiver side etc will be associated with a unique character code. In order to display the status on the mimic display of the LCD of the MFPs, the character code corresponding to status information will be decoded by the LCD driver and will then be displayed in the LCD.

Similarly, during the fax transmission process in case if an error happens in the transmission line, the corresponding character code for error image will be decoded and will be displayed in the LCD in the sender side. In case of successful fax document transmission, the method checks for the status of the sent data at the receiver side. If the received data is being printed at the receiver side then the character code for tray image will be decoded and will be displayed in the sender side LCD. However, in case if the received data is stored in the memory of the receiver MFP, then the corresponding character code for memory image will be decoded and it will be displayed in the sender side LCD.

Although the present invention has been fully described in connection with the preferred embodiments thereof with reference to the accompanying drawing, 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 claims unless they depart there from.

WE CLAIM

1. A method for displaying status information of a fax document on the display of a Multi Functional Peripheral (MFP) at run time, the method comprising:

a. sending a fax document from a sender MFP to a receiver MFP;
and

b. displaying status information on a mimic display on the LCD of the sender MFP, the status information being such as status of the fax document both at the sender side and receiver side, number of pages sent by the source MFP, number of pages received by the receiver MFP, number of pages that are stored in the memory of the receiver MFP, and number of pages printed at the receiver MFP.

2. The method of claim 1 wherein displaying the status information comprises:

a. assigning a unique code to each status information at the receiver MFP;

b. sending each unique code to the sender MFP;

c. decoding the unique code at the sender MFP; and

d. displaying the status information on the mimic display of the LCD of the sender MFP.

3. The method of claim 1, wherein the status information is sent using T.30 fax protocol.

4. A Multi Functional Peripheral (MFP) comprising a mimic display on its LCD, the mimic display displaying status information of a fax document, the status information being such as status of the fax document both at a sender side and receiver side, number of pages sent by a source MFP, number of pages received by a receiver MFP, number of pages that are stored in the memory of the receiver MFP, and number of pages printed at the receiver MFP.

5. The MFP of claim 4 further comprising an LCD driver, the LCD driver decoding a unique code assigned to each status information, the unique code being assigned by the receiver MFP.

6. A method for displaying status information of a fax document on the display of a Multi Functional Peripheral (MFP) at run time, substantially as herein described with reference to the accompanying drawings.


Documents:

http://ipindiaonline.gov.in/patentsearch/GrantedSearch/viewdoc.aspx?id=DnC2NtxneMBE9WH/0FTn3g==&loc=egcICQiyoj82NGgGrC5ChA==


Patent Number 268282
Indian Patent Application Number 2763/CHE/2007
PG Journal Number 35/2015
Publication Date 28-Aug-2015
Grant Date 25-Aug-2015
Date of Filing 26-Nov-2007
Name of Patentee SAMSUNG R& D INSTITUTE INDIA - BANGALORE PRIVATE LIMITED
Applicant Address #2870 ORION BUILDING BAGMANE CONSTELLATION BUSINESS PARK OUTER RING ROAD DODDANEKUNDI CIRCLE MARATHAHALLI POST BANGALORE -560037
Inventors:
# Inventor's Name Inventor's Address
1 BENNUR SANJIVA DHEERENDRA RAO EMPLOYED AT SAMSUNG INDIA SOFTWARE OPERATIONS PVT. LTD., HAVING ITS OFFICE AT, BAGMANE LAKEVIEW, BLOCK 'B', NO. 66/1, BAGMANE TECH PARK, C V RAMAN NAGAR, BYRASANDRA, BANGALORE - 560 093
PCT International Classification Number H04N
PCT International Application Number N/A
PCT International Filing date
PCT Conventions:
# PCT Application Number Date of Convention Priority Country
1 NA