Hierarchical architecture for a distributed and scalable network printing system

Abstract

A hierarchical architecture for a network printing system having a plurality of electronic printers and printing systems is provided. The hierarchical architecture decomposes each electronic printer and printing system's Digital Front End (DFE) and print engine into a hierarchical set of networked printer components communicating via a many-to-many network protocol. Print data is routed from component-to-component based on the receiving component's self-advertised function and availability. Adding duplicate printer components to the network environment scales or increases the reliability and performance of the network environment. A sufficiently large set of inexpensive printer components may be configured to achieve any desired level of reliability and performance through redundancy. Additionally, a network of DFE printer components (input and output spoolers, and RIP processors) can control multiple print engine components, improving the prior art 1:1 ratio between print engine components and DFE components.

Dependencies are inferred from the claim text.