Source: http://www.google.com/patents/US20030223766?dq=6514640
Timestamp: 2018-01-19 05:53:34
Document Index: 291486211

Matched Legal Cases: ['art 31', 'art 31', 'art 31', 'art 31', 'art 31', 'art 31', 'application No. 2002', 'application No. 2003']

Patent US20030223766 - Imaging apparatus and remote management system of the same - Google Patents
In a multi-function imaging machine, a termination condition for each application is managed at a remote location, and a termination operation of the application based on the termination condition is controlled at the imaging apparatus. This imaging apparatus implements a plurality of different applications...http://www.google.com/patents/US20030223766?utm_source=gb-gplus-sharePatent US20030223766 - Imaging apparatus and remote management system of the same
Publication number US20030223766 A1
Also published as US6836623, US7574147, US20050100352
Publication number 10392861, 392861, US 2003/0223766 A1, US 2003/223766 A1, US 20030223766 A1, US 20030223766A1, US 2003223766 A1, US 2003223766A1, US-A1-20030223766, US-A1-2003223766, US2003/0223766A1, US2003/223766A1, US20030223766 A1, US20030223766A1, US2003223766 A1, US2003223766A1
Original Assignee Tatsuya Imai
Patent Citations (7), Referenced by (45), Classifications (8), Legal Events (4)
US 20030223766 A1
a control unit that determines whether or not any of the applications satisfies said termination condition during activation by referring to the table, and terminates said application when the termination condition is satisfied.
the communication unit receives the termination condition from the external apparatus; and
the control unit records the termination condition received from the external apparatus into the table.
5. The imaging apparatus as claimed in claim 4, wherein:
7. The imaging apparatus as claimed in claim 1, wherein:
8. The imaging apparatus as claimed in claim 7, wherein:
9. The imaging apparatus as claimed in claim 7, wherein:
the communication unit receives second update information for changing the initial state from the external apparatus; and
the control unit updates the table based on said second update information.
10. The imaging apparatus as claimed in claim 9, wherein:
11. The imaging apparatus as claimed in claim 1, wherein:
12. A remote management system, comprising:
14. The remote management system as claimed in claim 13, wherein:
15. The remote management system as claimed in claim 12, wherein:
17. The remote management system as claimed in claim 16, wherein:
18. The remote management system as claimed in claim 12, wherein:
19. The remote management system as claimed in claim 12, wherein:
the remote management apparatus generates second update information for changing the initial state, and sends said second update information to the imaging apparatus; and
the imaging apparatus updates the initial state that is stored in the storage area based on the second update information received from the remote management apparatus.
the imaging apparatus sends a notification of a second updating result of the table to the remote management apparatus via the network when the initial state stored in the storage area is updated.
22. The remote management system as claimed in claim 21, wherein:
the remote management apparatus further comprises a display unit that, displays the notification received from the imaging apparatus.
23. The remote management system as claimed in claim 12, wherein:
[0039]FIG. 1 shows an overall configuration of a remote management system according to a first embodiment of the present invention;
[0040]FIG. 2 shows a software structure of an imaging apparatus used in the first embodiment of the present invention;
[0041]FIGS. 3A and 3B are diagrams illustrating operations of an application control part in the imaging apparatus, FIG. 3A illustrating an activation control and a termination control for each application realized by the application control part, and FIG. 3B illustrating a flow of information between the application control part, an application usage management table, the applications, and a system control service (SCS);
[0042]FIG. 4 shows a data structure of the application usage management table used in the imaging apparatus;
[0043]FIG. 5 shows a software structure of a remote management apparatus according to the first embodiment of the present invention;
[0044]FIG. 6 is a sequence diagram illustrating activation and termination processes according to the first embodiment of the present invention;
[0045]FIGS. 7A and 7B show communication data of SOAP messages as examples of state notifications sent from the imaging apparatus to the remote management apparatus, wherein FIG. 7A shows a notification of the activation of a scanner application, and FIG. 7B shows a notification of the termination of the scanner application in response to its termination condition being satisfied;
[0046]FIG. 8 is a sequence diagram illustrating condition update command output processes performed at the imaging apparatus and the remote management apparatus;
[0047]FIG. 9 shows an example of communication data of a SOAP message notification of the updating of a condition of the scanner application;
[0048]FIG. 10 shows an overall configuration of a remote management system according to a second embodiment of the present invention;
[0049]FIG. 11 shows a data structure of a usage mode management table stored in the remote management apparatus according to the second embodiment of the present invention;
[0050]FIG. 12 shows a software structure of the remote management apparatus according to the second embodiment of the present invention;
[0051]FIG. 13 is a sequence diagram illustrating the activation and termination processes performed at the imaging apparatus and the remote management apparatus according to the second embodiment of the present invention; and
[0052]FIGS. 14A and 14B show examples of communication data of a SOAP message, wherein FIG. 14A represents an activation instruction, and FIG. 14B represents a termination instruction.
[0054]FIG. 1 shows a configuration of a remote management system according to a first embodiment of the present invention. The remote management system 1 includes an imaging apparatus 10 and a remote management apparatus 20 that manages the imaging apparatus 10 from a remote location. The imaging apparatus 10 and the remote management apparatus 20 are connected via the Internet 50, and a connection according to the HTTP (hyper text transfer protocol), for example, is established. It should be noted that in this drawing, only one imaging apparatus 10 is shown in order to simplify the following descriptions; however, the system of the present embodiment is configured to include a plurality of imaging apparatuses 10 under the management of one remote management apparatus 20.
[0063]FIG. 2 shows an architecture of the imaging apparatus 10. As shown in the drawing, a software layer is constructed on top of the hardware resources 10H with an engine I/F in between. This software layer includes an OS (operating system) layer 41 at the bottom, a service module layer 42 and an application control layer 43 in the middle, and an application module layer 44 at the top.
[0081]FIGS. 3A and 3B are diagrams showing the relationship between the application control part 31, the applications 35 a-35 d, and the system control service (SCS) 11 g. As shown in FIG. 3A, the application control part 31 is inserted between the applications 35 at the top and the system control service (SCS) 11 g at the bottom. The application control part 31 acquires the current state of each application and controls the activation and termination of each application.
[0084]FIG. 3B shows the functions of the application control part 31 and the flow of information upon terminating an application. The application control part 31 includes a command reception module 31 a, an application execution control module 31 b, an update module 31 c, and a state notification module 31 d.
[0090]FIG. 4 shows a data structure of the application usage management table 32. The application usage management table 32 contains various fields such as the identifier, the version, the activation state, the activation count, the number of jobs, the number of pages, the termination condition, the activation command, and the initial state of each of the applications installed in the imaging apparatus 10. The above described update module 31 c updates a predetermined field value of the application usage management table 32, and the state notification module 31 d outputs the field value of the application usage management table 32 as a state notification. The state notification includes a notification of a change in the state of an application program. For example, a state change of a particular application program from an activated state to a terminated state or from a terminated state to an activated state is reported to the remote management apparatus 20. The state notification report also includes a condition change of an application program due to the updating of an activation condition (the field value of the ‘initial state’) or a termination condition (the field value of the ‘termination condition’) of the application program.
[0091]FIG. 5.shows an architecture of the remote management apparatus 20. The remote management apparatus 20 includes an OS layer 51 and an application module layer 52.
[0099]FIG. 6 is a sequence diagram showing the activation and termination processes of an application. The activation process starts when power is supplied to the imaging apparatus 10 and the OS is activated. With the activation of the OS, the control unit 11 of the imaging apparatus 10 refers to the ‘initial state’ of the applications in the application usage management table 32 and starts the necessary application programs. On the other hand, the termination process is a process of terminating an application program when the corresponding termination condition defined in the application usage management table 32 is satisfied. In FIG. 6, the processes executed by each of the modules of the application control part 31 at the control unit 11 of the imaging apparatus 10 and the processes executed by each of the modules of the control unit 21 of the remote management apparatus 20 are shown as a sequence. Since the processes executed by the command reception module 31 a of the imaging apparatus 10 and the notification reception module 21 f of the remote management apparatus 20 are not directly relevant to the present invention, these processes are omitted from the drawings and descriptions.
[0109]FIG. 7A shows an example of a SOAP message sent from the imaging apparatus 10. This SOAP message is a state notification signaling that the scanner application 11 k has been activated. In the attribute of the XML tag of this SOAP message, a URL defining the information for interpreting the structure of the SOAP message is described. The control unit 21 of the remote management apparatus 20 interprets the structure of the SOAP message received from the imagaing apparatus 10, and determines that the SOAP message is transmitting information of a state change that is indicated as “stateChanged (‘scanner’, ‘activate’)”.
In the example of a termination condition based on the termination timing, the termination condition for the fax application 35 c is set to: ‘date>December 17’. The imaging apparatus 10 has a timer (not shown) that manages the termination timing established as the termination condition. By referring to this timer, the application execution control module 31 b instructs the termination of the fax application 35 c when the date December 17 passes.
[0122]FIG. 7B shows an example of a SOAP message for signaling that the scanner application 35 d has been terminated. As described above, in a SOAP message, the name space or the information type is defined by a directory of a predetermined URL (uniform resource location), and this URL is described as an attribute of the XML tag of the SOAP message. Thus, the remote management apparatus 20 that acquires the SOAP message of FIG. 7B is able to interpret the structure of this SOAP message by gaining access to the address described as the attribute of this XML tag and referring to its definition information. Consequently, it is determined that the acquired SOAP message is signaling a state change indicated as: “stateChanged (‘scanner’, ‘terminate’)”.
[0124]FIG. 8 is a sequence diagram illustrating the condition update command output processes. The condition update command output processes are processes for reflecting condition change instructions in the application usage management table 32 at the imaging apparatus 10. The condition change instruction, which is generated at the remote management apparatus 20, may be an instruction to change the termination condition or the initial setting of an application. An operator may input the condition change instruction to the remote management apparatus 20 when the state changes of the imaging apparatus 10 are displayed on the display unit 24, or the operator may otherwise input the instruction at an arbitrary timing. Alternatively, the condition change instruction may be automatically input by arranging the remote management apparatus 20 to be connected to a web page (not shown).
[0128]FIG. 9 shows an example of a command directing the updating of the ‘termination condition’ field value of the scanner application 35 d. In a SOAP message, the name space or the information type is defined by a directory of a predetermined URL (uniform resource location), and this URL is described as an attribute of the XML tag of the SOAP message. Thus, the imaging apparatus 10 is able to interpret the structure of this SOAP message shown in FIG. 9 by gaining access to the address described as the attribute of this XML tag and referring to its definition information. As a result, it is determined that the acquired SOAP message is sending an update command indicated as: “modifyTable (‘application usage management table’, ‘scanner’, ‘termination condition’=‘number of pages>150’)”.
[0141]FIG. 10 shows an overall configuration of a remote management system 60 according to the second embodiment of the present invention. The configuration of the imaging apparatus 10 is identical to that of the first embodiment. The remote management apparatus 20 has an expiration time management unit 26 in addition to the control unit 21, the storage unit 22, the communication unit 23, the display unit 24, and the input unit 25. Also, the storage unit 22 stores a usage mode management table 62. The expiration time management unit 26 manages the activation of an application program, and also manages the expiration time pre-set as a termination condition based on the time of activation. The expiration time management unit 26 may have a timer mechanism, for example.
[0142]FIG. 11 shows a data structure of the usage mode management table 62 stored in the storage unit 22. The usage mode management table 62 keeps track of the setting of the initial state and termination condition of each application. The usage mode management table 62 stores an identifier of each imaging apparatus 10 as a main key. The remote management apparatus 20 assigns a different identifier to each imaging apparatus 10 so as to control the operations of a plurality of imaging apparatuses 10. In this way, the imaging apparatus 10 can be unambiguously identified.
[0145]FIG. 12 shows a software structure of the remote management apparatus 20 according to the second embodiment. In the second embodiment, the remote management apparatus 20 has a usage mode management module 21 g implemented in the application layer. The usage mode management module 21 g identifies the application programs that need to be activated from the start for each imaging apparatus 10 and generates activation commands for the identified application programs based on the contents of the usage mode management table 62 stored in the storage unit 22.
[0146]FIG. 13 is a sequence diagram illustrating the activation and termination processes between the imaging apparatus 10 and the remote management apparatus 20 according to the second embodiment.
[0153]FIG. 14A shows an example of an activation instruction command that directs the activation of the scanner application. As described above, in a SOAP message, the name space or the information type is defined by a directory of a predetermined URL (uniform resource location), and this URL is described as an attribute of the XML tag of the SOAP message. Thus, the imaging apparatus 10 is able to interpret the structure of this SOAP message by gaining access to the address described as the attribute of the XML tag in the SOAP message and referring to its definition information. In the example of FIG. 14A, the imaging apparatus 10 identifies the SOAP message sent from the remote management apparatus 20 as information conveying an instruction command indicated as: “changeState (‘scanner’,‘activate’)”. Based on the identified command, the imaging apparatus control unit 11 determines that the application program that should be activated is the scanner application, and thereby instructs this scanner application to activate.
[0164]FIG. 14B shows an example of a termination instruction command that directs the termination of the scanner application. The imaging apparatus 10 interprets the structure of the acquired SOAP message by gaining access to the address described as the attribute of the XML tag in the SOAP message and referring to the definition information. As a result, the SOAP message is identified as information conveying an instruction command indicated as: “changeState (‘scanner’, ‘terminate’)”. Based on the interpretation of this command, the imaging apparatus control unit 11 determines that the application program that should be terminated is the scanner application, and thereby instructs this scanner application to terminate.
The present application is based on and claims the benefit of the earlier filing date of Japanese priority application No. 2002-083329 filed on Mar. 25, 2002, and Japanese priority application No. 2003-______ filed on Mar. ______, 2003, the entire contents of which are hereby incorporated by reference.
US7650536 Jun 7, 2006 Jan 19, 2010 Fujitsu Limited Forced termination condition monitoring device, forced termination condition monitoring method and storage medium embodying forced termination condition monitoring program
US7694333 Jul 23, 2004 Apr 6, 2010 Ricoh Company, Ltd. Communication apparatus, communication system, certificate transmission method, anomaly detection method and a program therefor
US8571602 Jun 8, 2007 Oct 29, 2013 Qualcomm Incorporated Universal mobile print agent
US20070198830 * Jul 23, 2004 Aug 23, 2007 Tatsuya Imai Communication apparatus, communication system, certificate transmission method, anomaly detection method and a program therefor
CN103384298A * Apr 27, 2013 Nov 6, 2013 理光（中国）投资有限公司 Image forming device
CN104125359A * Apr 26, 2013 Oct 29, 2014 理光（中国）投资有限公司 图像形成装置
EP1696321A1 * Feb 23, 2005 Aug 30, 2006 Deutsche Thomson-Brandt Gmbh Method and apparatus for executing software applications
EP2354936A1 * Feb 6, 2006 Aug 10, 2011 Thomson Licensing Method and apparatus for executing software applications
EP2806360A1 * Feb 6, 2006 Nov 26, 2014 Thomson Licensing Method and apparatus for executing software applications
WO2006089834A1 * Feb 6, 2006 Aug 31, 2006 Thomson Licensing Method and apparatus for executing software applications
International Classification B41J29/38, H04N1/00, G06F3/12, G03G15/00
Cooperative Classification G03G2215/00109, G03G15/5083