Patent ID: 8144354

Claim:
A method for metering, monitoring, and providing real-time enterprise printing information about a plurality of printers connected to a network by gathering and transforming printer usage data from the plurality of printers and transporting the printer usage data to a server, the method comprising the following steps: scanning the network to obtain printer usage data from the plurality of printers connected to the network, wherein scanning comprises at least one of the following scans: a simple network management protocol (“SNMP”) scan, whereby the SNMP scan comprises the steps of scanning a range of IP addresses in the network for SNMP-enabled printers and for each SNMP-enabled printer discovered, comparing the discovered printer to an Object Identifier (“OID”), and retrieving from the discovered printer printer usage data based upon the OID; a non-shared desktop printers (“NSDP”) scan, whereby the NSDP scan comprises the steps of scanning a range of IP addresses in the network for NSDP Monitors, whereby an NSDP Monitor monitors non-network printers attached to a network, and gathering printer usage data from the discovered printers, or a jet direct scan whereby the jet direct scan comprises the steps of locating Jet Direct printers by contacting a port of a Jet Direct printer and submitting Printer Job Language (PJL) queries whereby the queries retrieve printer usage data; transforming the printer usage data from its original form into an extensible markup language (XML) whereby special characters within the original form are preserved in the XML; encapsulating the transformed printer usage data to maintain security and privacy of the printer usage data; and transmitting the encapsulated printer usage data to the server.