Patent ID: 7286772

Claim:
A network printer system comprising a first network printer and at least one second network printer communicably connected to one or more terminals, wherein the first network printer comprises: a communication module to communicate data with the terminals through a network and to support communication with the at least one second network printer; a toner residue computing unit to compute a toner residue value of a toner cartridge based on a number of pages printed by the first network printer; a memory to store toner cartridge information which includes the toner residue value computed by the toner residue computing unit; and a central processing device to, when a predetermined condition is satisfied, control the communication module to provide the at least one second network printer with the toner cartridge information, and when the toner cartridge information provided from the at least one second network printer includes the most recent information on a currently-mounted toner cartridge, to control the toner cartridge information provided from the at least one second network printer to be stored in at least one of the memory and the currently mounted toner cartridge.