Google Cloud Printing Application Gets Published by USPTO
Date: December 14, 2011
Mountain View, CA -- Originally filed in 2010, Google’s application to the US Patent and Trade Office (USPTO) which details the “Cloud Print” service which Google has now integrated into their Chrome web browser. Additionally, their patent application includes details about the authentication process of users to the service.
More specifically, (from the patent)
“A print server may include an application manager configured to receive a print request over a network from an application executing on a device, and configured to provide, over the network, a print dialog to a user of the application […] A print job router may be configured to route the print job over the network from the print server to a print client associated with the selected printer, for printing by the selected printer, using the printer-specific format”.
Google believes that their design for cloud printing via a browser is better for the user because it does not rely upon maintaining printer drivers in order to print. They provide the example of a smartphone which likely do not have the resources to maintain such data. The lack of mobile printing can lead to frustration of the user. Additionally, Google thinks that their solution will also allow printer manufacturers to not have to worry about pushing driver updates for as many platforms as they have had to do up until now.
