Patent ID: 7664887

Claim:
A method for adding support for a protocol at a printing device, wherein the protocol is not currently supported by the printing device, comprising: storing, at the printing device, protocol information for the protocol, wherein the protocol information identifies how to add support for the protocol to the printing device; and after storing the protocol information at the printing device, in response to a condition being satisfied, performing: creating, at the printing device, based on the protocol information stored at the printing device, a listener for the protocol, wherein the listener monitors a port that is specified by the protocol information and receives, by way of a network at the monitored port of the printing device, messages associated with the protocol; creating, at the printing device, based on the protocol information stored at the printing device, a message queue for the protocol, wherein the message queue stores the messages associated with the protocol received at the monitored port by the printing device for the protocol; and creating, at the printing device, based on the protocol information stored at the printing device, a protocol handler for the protocol, wherein the protocol handler performs protocol specific processing on the messages received at the monitored port and associated with the protocol by calling a function specified by the protocol information; wherein the printing device is one of: a multi-function peripheral, a facsimile machine, a printer, and a copier.