Patent ID: 6922725

Claim:
An apparatus for processing an electronic document in accordance with a document service request, said apparatus comprising: an output device for responding to a request to establish a first wireless communication channel; the output device being adapted to respond to discovery requests and output a representation of electronic documents; a document server for responding to a request to establish a second wireless communication channel; the document server being adapted to render electronic documents into formats suitable for output devices; a mobile computing device for bridging communications between (i) the output device over the first wireless communication channel and (ii) the document server over the second wireless communication channel; wherein the mobile computing device further comprises means for: (a) executing a discovery request over the first wireless communication channel to identify one or more output devices available over the first wireless communication channel; (b) receiving from the output device in response to the discovery request a list of available services that specifies a desired or preferred format in which to receive the electronic document; (c) specifying the document service request in response to user input that includes a first parameter identifying a location of the electronic document and a second parameter identifying a type of output device for performing the document service request; (d) sending the document service request to the document server for rendering the electronic document, which is identified by the first parameter, into a format suitable for the output device, which is identified by the second parameter; (e) transmitting to the output device over the first wireless communication channel the rendered electronic document it receives from the document server over the second wireless communication channel.