Patent ID: 7436533

Claim:
A method for discovering printers connected to a print server comprising the steps of: transmitting a first communication protocol request to every Internet Protocol (IP) address in a range of IP addresses; receiving a first communication protocol response to the first communication protocol request from one or more devices at one or more IP addresses in the range of IP addresses; identifying which of the one or more devices are printers as opposed to non-printer devices based on the first communication protocol response, wherein identifying further comprises searching for one or more keywords in the response received from the one or more devices, wherein the one or more keywords indicate if a device is a printer; and attempting to communicate with each of the one or more devices identified as printers to obtain printer attribute information, wherein attempting to communicate with a device comprises: transmitting a first request to the device for printer attribute information using a second communication protocol; determining whether a response to the first request was received from the device; and updating a database with the obtained printer attribute information responsive to determining that the response to the first request was received from the device.