Patent ID: 7511839

Claim:
A control method for a composite apparatus having a printer unit, a scanner unit, a facsimile communication unit, a controller adapted to control copying operation and facsimile operation by the scanner unit and the facsimile communication unit, a network connector adapted to connect to a computer network to send and receive a packet, a printer language processor adapted to process a printer language, and a direct signal line directly connecting the network connector with the printer language processor, said method comprising: determining whether the packet received by the network connector is print data or not by analyzing a header of the packet without processing the packet; transferring the packet from the network connector to the printer language processor via the direct signal line without transferring the packet to the controller if the packet is print data; processing in the printer language processor the transferred packet into print data suitable for printing; printing the print data processed by the printer language processor in the printer unit under control of the printer language processor; and transferring the packet from the network connector to the controller without transferring the packet to the printer language processor if the packet is not print data.