Patent ID: 7839526

Claim:
A printing system comprising: a plurality of printing apparatuses connected to a network; and at least one control apparatus, wherein the control apparatus sends a print job to at least one printing apparatus of the plurality of printing apparatuses and instructs the at least one printing apparatus to execute the print job, wherein when a first printing apparatus from among the plurality of printing apparatuses is instructed to execute the print job, the control apparatus makes a substitute printing reservation for at least one second printing apparatus, wherein the substitute printing reservation allows the at least one second printing apparatus to execute the print job instead of the first printing apparatus, wherein the at least one second printing apparatus for which the substitute printing reservation has been made is set to a waiting state for waiting to execute the print job instead of the first printing apparatus, wherein the at least one second printing apparatus for which the substitute printing reservation has been made is held in the waiting state for waiting to execute the print job instead of the first printing apparatus until the substitute printing reservation is canceled by the control apparatus, wherein when the at least one second printing apparatus for which the substitute printing reservation has been made enters a state in which a printing operation is disabled before the substitute printing reservation is canceled by the control apparatus, the at least one second printing apparatus requests the control apparatus to cancel the substitute printing reservation, and wherein in response to a request for cancellation of the substitute printing reservation, the control apparatus cancels the substitute printing reservation for the at least one second printing apparatus that requested the cancellation of the substitute printing reservation and makes a substitute printing reservation for another printing apparatus.