Source: http://www.google.com/patents/US7988051?dq=6,606,102
Timestamp: 2018-01-16 19:56:42
Document Index: 196210766

Matched Legal Cases: ['Application No. 60', 'Application No. 60', 'Application No. 10', 'art 2', 'art 2', 'Application No. 10']

Patent US7988051 - XML printer system with RFID capability - Google Patents
An XML system is configured to print bar code labels, tags, tickets, cards, or other media, and/or encode RFID devices embedded in media, based upon an extensible markup language (XML) input data stream. The XML system includes a computer system operatively coupled to a network. The computer system further...http://www.google.com/patents/US7988051?utm_source=gb-gplus-sharePatent US7988051 - XML printer system with RFID capability
Publication number US7988051 B2
Application number US 12/551,953
Also published as US7600685, US20060249566, US20090321513
Publication number 12551953, 551953, US 7988051 B2, US 7988051B2, US-B2-7988051, US7988051 B2, US7988051B2
Inventors Bruce Alleshouse
Original Assignee ZIP Corp.
Patent Citations (40), Non-Patent Citations (28), Referenced by (12), Classifications (11), Legal Events (3)
US 7988051 B2
wherein formatting the XML data includes formatting the XML data in accordance with program instructions scripted in the proprietary programming language.
wherein the formatting engine configured to format the XML data includes being configured to format the associated XML data according to the format governed by the format template; and
wherein the rendering engine configured to generate the printable representation includes being configured to
15. The apparatus of claim 14, wherein the formatting engine configured to format the XML data includes being configured to format the XML data with a Simple API for XML (SAX) processor.
16. The apparatus of claim 14 further comprising a processor configured to receive encoded data read from an RFID device.
wherein the computer-readable program code instructions configured to generate the printable representation include being configured to:
wherein the computer-readable program code instructions are further configured to generate one or more events based upon commands embedded in the format template.
This application is a continuation of, and claims of the benefit or priority from, U.S. application Ser. No. 10/505,982 filed Mar. 28, 2006, now U.S. Pat. No. 7,600,685 which is hereby incorporated by reference in its entirety. U.S. application Ser. No. 10/505,982 claims the benefit of priority from International Application No. PCT/US04/015499, having an International filing date of May 17, 2004, which is hereby incorporated by reference in its entirety, and claims the benefit of priority from, and is a continuation-in-part of, then co-pending U.S. application Ser. No. 10/332,604, filed Oct. 20, 2003, now issued as U.S. Pat. No. 7,025,268, which is hereby incorporated by reference in its entirety. U.S. Pat. No. 7,025,268 claims the benefit of priority from International Application No. PCT/US02/36322, having an International filing date of Nov. 13, 2002, which is hereby incorporated by reference in its entirety, and is a continuation-in-part of then co-pending U.S. application Ser. No. 10/197,014, filed Jul. 17, 2002, now issued as U.S. Pat. No. 6,540,142, which is hereby incorporated by reference in its entirety. U.S. Pat. No. 6,540,142 claims the benefit of priority from the following provisional applications: 1) provisional U.S. Application No. 60/345,389, filed Jan. 4, 2002, entitled XML Printer Technology, and 2) provisional U.S. Application No. 60/341,427, filed Dec. 17, 2001, entitled Bar Code Labeling Systems Having Machine Readable Standards. Provisional U.S. Application Nos. 60/345,389 and 60/341,427 are incorporated herein by reference in their entirety.
35 <xs:element name=“zip”>
15 <fo:flow flow-name=“xsl-region-body” font=“12pt
5 <fo:simple-page-master master-name=“all-labels”>
Further, this specific example of the representation of the XSLFO instance node tree 130 contains an instream foreign object, as shown at lines 21-26 of the code segment 4, which instream foreign object may not be processed by the XSLFO processor 78. Rather, the instream foreign object may be passed to the bitmap/barcode/RFID rendering engine 80 for processing. Note that at this point in the processing, the XSLFO processor 78 does not “know” how to print a barcode label or encode an RFID transponder because barcode element types and RFID transponder element types are not included in the XSLFO specification. Rather, only the text information, such as the underlying value data, namely, “Einstein,” “1234 Relative Way,” and the like, as shown in code segments 1-2, could be printed on the barcode label as text. With respect to labels, no actual barcode symbol would appear because the XSLFO processor 78 does not “know” how to produce a barcode symbol. The RFID transponder would not be encoded because the XSLFO processor 78 does not “know” how to encode a transponder.
Using the RFID transponder type and the attributes obtained from the instream foreign object, the rendering engine 80 then obtains the actual node text data to be converted into the RFID transponder encoding, as shown in a block 185. For example, the actual RFID encoding may be the zip code “08540,” which may be placed as ASCII characters in blocks 0 and 1 of a Tag-it transponder (since each block of a Tag-it holds 4 bytes of data). A Tag-it transponder can hold 8 blocks each with 4 bytes of data for a total of 32 bytes of user data. The physical conversion from the numerical data representing the actual RFID encoded data into the form suitable for encoding into the RFID transponder may be performed by software routines contained in, for example, the printers and systems commercially available from Zebra Technologies Corporation.
In this embodiment, the hybrid XML printer system 300 may receive XML data that is based on ZPL data templates, which templates conform to the ZPL language (Zebra Programming Language), such as ZPL I and/or ZPL II, and any variants thereof. The ZPL language is a formatting language that uses the “caret” character and a two-letter command code to define a command. For example, the “^XA” command defines the start of a new label format, and the “^XZ” command defines the end of a label format.
1 <?xml version=“1.0” encoding=“UTF-8”?>
The code segment 6 contains three groups of “label” data, as shown at lines 5-11, 12-18, and 19-25, respectively. Note that the three groups of “label” data appear to be similar to code segment 1, namely lines 8-14, 15-21, and 22-28 respectively, because both code segments refer to “Albert Einstein,” “Steven Hawking,” and “Richard Feynman,” respectively, and have associated fields for address, city, state, and zip code data. Accordingly, the data shown in code segment 6 corresponds to three individual labels to be printed. Note, however, that for each of the three labels to be printed, all of the addressee information is printed as text, but only the zip code field is printed as an actual barcode. This is because of the “ABZ” command defined in template of code segment 5, line 12.
Various ZPL commands govern the processing and define the fields of the label, essentially establishing and defining the data to be printed. Printer control and other commands may be received at this stage of processing. When all of the format template has been downloaded, the ZPL processing block 322 encounters an “end of label” command (^XZ), which causes the format template to be saved. Note that the ^DF command with the corresponding identifier “E:SHPLABL.ZPL,” (shown at line 2 of code segment 5) indicates to the ZPL processing block 322 that the format template is preferably saved internally in the printer system on the “E:” device in a file named “shiplabl.zpl.” Of course, the format template need not be saved internally in the printer system and may be saved at any storage location, such as on a networked server or a remote location accessible through a communication network.
Also note in FIG. 8, a block labeled “ZPL label formats” (352) represents a data store. This indicates that the template data coming from the input stream is stored in a data store. The line exiting the data store 352 indicates that at some later time the data is retrieved from the data store for additional processing. The data flow path is from the block 360 to the store to the block 356, but this does not represent the actual “control flow,” which is not a linear flow.
When an “end of label element” event (</label>) is received, the label is complete and now may be printed. Control is then routed to a ZPL formatting engine processing 394, which causes the label to be printed. Preferably, the function of the ZPL formatting engine processing 394 includes the function of bitmap/barcode/RFID rendering. Thus, the block 394 will be referred to as the ZPL formatting engine. This combined function determines the bitmaps for each of the text, barcode, and other fields on the label, integrates the individual bitmaps with proper rotation and magnification into a single label bitmap 396, and sends the completed label bitmap to the print engine (or printer driver 54, FIG. 1) for physical rendering on media. As described above, the ZPL formatting engine processing 394 may be found in various commercially available ZPL printers, such as for example, in printers commercially available from Zebra Technologies Corporation of Vernon Hills, Ill., which may include the following printer models: XiIII+, 9XiIII+, 96XiIII+, 110XiIII+, 140XiIII+, 170XiIII+, 220XiIII+, Model Z4M, Z6M, 105SL Model R4Mplus, R402, R-140 printer/encoders, and any Model Xi series barcode printers.
5 <variable name=“name”>Albert Einstein</variable>
10 <variable name=“tagid”>1248002001</variable>
25 <variable name=“zip”>10044</variable>
When the printer is requested to upload the log data, the printer forms an XML data stream similar to that shown in code segment 8. The data is very similar to the XML data sent to the printer in order to print the labels, but with some additions. A “root” element has been added so that data from more than one complete print job can be returned in the same XML stream. The name of the log file is specified in the _LOGFILE attribute shown on line 2. The data that was read from the RFID tag is included as “tagid” variables on lines 10, 18, and 26. When this data is received by a host computer, the host will know that the RFID tag with id of “1248002001” was used to identify the goods shipped to Albert Einstein. This data can be stored in a database on the host computer for later reference. Although this example is shown with the unique tag identifier, any data written to or read from the RFID tag could be reported to the host computer in a similar manner.
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U.S. Classification 235/462.01, 235/462.09, 235/375, 235/462.15
Cooperative Classification G06Q10/10, G06Q10/00, G06K1/121
European Classification G06Q10/00, G06Q10/10, G06K1/12B