Patent ID: 7265860

Claim:
In a printing environment that includes a plurality of printing devices, a method for balancing one or more print jobs across the printing devices to increase throughput of the print jobs, the method comprising the steps for: receiving a request to despool print data relating to one or more print jobs; obtaining job information during or after generation of the print data relating to each of the print jobs to enable a load balance of the print jobs across the printing devices, wherein the job information is preserved separately from the print data, and wherein at least a portion of the job information enables a determination as to an amount of time required for completion of each of the print jobs; maintaining heuristic information relating to a status and available characteristics of each of the printing devices to enable a load balance of the print jobs across the printing devices, wherein the heuristic information is preserved separately from the print data; using the job information and the heuristic information to determine an optimal load balance amongst the printing devices; selectively distributing the print jobs to the printing devices according to the optimal load balance; and rendering the print jobs.