Patent Document

CROSS-REFERENCE TO RELATED APPLICATIONS 
   This is a division of U.S. patent application Ser. No. 09/667,361 filed Sep. 21, 2000, now U.S. Pat. No. 6,806,976 which is hereby incorporated by reference. 

   TECHNICAL FIELD 
   The systems and methods for activating print jobs from a remote electronic device described herein relate to remote control of printing task. More specifically, the described implementations relate to activating confidential print jobs on a printer from a remote electronic device. 
   BACKGROUND 
   As electronic technology has become more advanced and has been more readily available to the common populace, computer users have become acutely aware of privacy issues surrounding use of computers and related technology. These privacy issues related, not only to traditionally confidential material (as in commercially private information or national defense information) but to personal information, such as social security numbers, credit card information, bank account numbers and data, medical information, and so forth. It is no longer difficult for a person to use another person&#39;s social security number with other personal information to obtain access to bank accounts, new or replacement credit cards a birth certificate with which other documents can be obtained, etc. Once armed with this private information, a misfeasor can inflict financial and emotional damage on an unwitting victim. 
   As computer networks and printers associated with them have proliferated in the workplace, one problem with protecting confidentiality can result-from an employee submitting a print job to a network printer. If the employee submits a print job to a network printer that is not in the immediate vicinity of the employee, the information will be printed by the printer and will remain on the printer for the time it takes the employee to get to the printer and retrieve the document. Since several users use a network printer, another employee or superior may be situated at the printer when the private document is printed, or shortly after the document is printed but before the first employee has arrived to retrieve the document. 
   Especially in the case of where the second employee is at the printer to retrieve a print job printed by that employee, it is natural that the second employee will examine, if only briefly, the private document in an attempt to determine if that document is the document that was printed by the second employee. The private document may contain personal information that the first employee would not want revealed to other employees. For example, the letter might be a letter to the first employee&#39;s lawyer about a current legal problem. Obviously, even the fact that the first employee is dealing with a lawyer may be information that the first employee does not want any other employee to know. 
   Another problem that arises is a case in which the employee submits the print job, but then gets distracted by a telephone call or some other diversion. It is not uncommon in such a situation for the employee to forget that the print job was sent and remains on the printer. This makes it probable that the document will be read by a fellow employee or, if personal information that may be used to ‘steal’ the identity of the employee, it is more vulnerable to be retrieved by a non-employee or an after-hours employee who has relatively private access to the printer. 
   One solution that has been used to avoid such problems is to require information, such as a private code or private password, to be entered at the printer by the employee to activate the print job. Although the print file associated with the print job is processed normally, the print file remains in the printer until the employee activates the print job. This ensures that the employee is located at the printer when the print job is printed and, thus, personally retrieves the printed document. 
   A problem with this solution is that it requires the printer to have a complex control panel that includes alphanumeric keys to enable a user to enter a pass code or password. This adds unnecessary expense to the printer if the printer users have no other need for entering alphanumeric information into the printer. 
   SUMMARY 
   The systems and methods for activating confidential print jobs from a remote electronic device described herein allow an owner of a print job to control the release or activation of a print job that has confidential information to be printed. The described implementations help ensure that such a printer user is proximally situated to the printer when the print job is printed. 
   In one implementation described herein, a network computer user selects a file to be printed on a network printer. The user indicates that the file contains confidential information so the printer will not print a document containing the information until receiving further instructions from the user. The file is downloaded to the printer and is stored in printer memory until an activation command is received from the user. The activation command from the user contains some identifying data, such as a password, that the user must enter to positively identify the user to the printer. 
   An alphanumeric keypad is required to enter the activation command. Rather than require a complex control panel on the printer to have an alphanumeric keypad, the activation command is entered on an alphanumeric keypad of a remote electronic device, such as a cellular telephone, a handheld computer, etc. This reduces the expense of the printer while utilizing personal electronics that are becoming increasingly common. 
   In another implementation, the user may designate a file to be printed directly from the electronic device. In this case, the electronic device would have the capability of connecting to a network and allowing the user to enter a file name, either directly or by scrolling through a list of choices and selecting the file to print. 
   Using the systems and methods described herein minimizes the risk that personal and confidential information contained in a file to be printed will be read by anyone other than the user. 

   
     BRIEF DESCRIPTION OF THE DRAWINGS 
     A more complete understanding of exemplary methods and arrangements of the present invention may be had by reference to the following detailed description when taken in conjunction with the accompanying drawings wherein: 
       FIG. 1  is an illustration of a system having a cellular telephone communicating wirelessly with a laser printer. 
       FIG. 2  is a block diagram of a system that includes a portable telephone and a printer. 
       FIG. 3  is a flow diagram depicting a method for remotely activating a print job having confidential data from an electronic device. 
   

   DETAILED DESCRIPTION 
   The invention is illustrated in the drawings as being implemented in a suitable computing environment. Although not required, the invention will be described in the general context of computer-executable instructions, such as program modules, to be executed by a computing device, such as a personal computer, a hand-held computer or portable electronic device. Generally, program modules include routines, programs, objects, components, data structures, etc., that perform particular tasks or implement particular abstract data types. Moreover, those skilled in the art will appreciate that the invention may be practiced with other computer system configurations, including multi-processor systems, microprocessor-based or programmable consumer electronics, network PCs, minicomputers, mainframe computers, and the like. The invention may also be practiced in distributed computing environments where tasks are performed by remote processing devices that are linked through a communications network. In a distributed computing environment, program modules may be located in both local and remote memory storage devices. 
   General reference is made herein to one or more printers. As used herein, “printer” means any electronic device having data communications and data storage capabilities, and functions to render printed characters on a print medium. The term “printer” includes, but is not limited to, laser printers, ink jet printers, dot matrix printers, dry medium printers, copiers, facsimile machines and plotters. Although specific examples may refer to one or more of these printers, such examples are not meant to limit the scope of the claims or the description, but are meant to provide a specific understanding of the described implementations. 
     FIG. 1  depicts a portable telephone  100  that communicates wirelessly with a laser printer  102 . Although the described implementations refer to the portable telephone  100 , it is noted that any portable, remote electronic device may be utilized to perform the functions attributed to the portable telephone  100 , as long as the portable electronic device includes features configured to provide the functionality described herein. Examples of other remote electronic devices include, but are not limited to, a cellular telephone, a satellite telephone, a PDA (personal digital assistant), a handheld computer, etc. 
   The portable telephone  100  includes a display  104 , an antenna  106  and a plurality of function buttons  108 . An alphanumeric keypad  110  is included on the portable telephone  100  and is used to enter alphanumeric data into the portable telephone  100 . The alphanumeric keypad  110  includes several buttons or keys. In the present example, the alphanumeric keypad  100  includes buttons similar to a standard telephone, which includes the numerals one (1) through ten (10), an asterisk button and a pound sign button. Although this configuration is not required, it is a configuration familiar to the general public and convenient for the purposes described herein. 
   The portable telephone  100  also includes scroll buttons  112 , one button that is used to scroll up, and one button that is used to scroll down. In other implementations, a scrolling mechanism may be included, but it is unnecessary that the scrolling mechanism exist exactly as shown here. For example, if the electronic device is a PDA, then the scrolling mechanism may be scrolling buttons on the case of the PDA, or it may be a stylus and touch screen that can be used to scroll a display. 
   The portable telephone  100  communicates with the laser printer  102  over a wireless communications link  114 . The wireless communications link may be an infrared (IR) link, a radio frequency link (RF), or any other viable wireless communications method. It is essential to the described implementations that there be a wireless link between the electronic device and the printer, so that the printer may include printers that do not have alphanumeric keys on a printer control pad as well as printer that include an alphanumeric keypad on the control panel. 
     FIG. 2  is a block diagram of a portable telephone  200  and the laser printer  202  similar to those shown in  FIG. 1 . The portable telephone  200  includes memory  204  and an alphanumeric keypad  206 . The memory  204  includes a print module  208  that controls printing functions of the portable telephone  200 . The portable telephone also includes an input module  210  that is configured to receive data input via the alphanumeric keypad  206  and pass input data to other components of the portable telephone  200 , such as the memory  204 . 
   The print module  208  includes a print job  212 , a deferred printer command  214 , a print job activation command  216  and a file name  218 . The print job  212  includes the deferred print command  214  when manually included by a user or when the print job  212  contains personal and/or confidential information that has been previously identified as requiring the deferred print command  214  to be included when the print job  212  contains such information. The file name  218  is a name of a file that is to be included in the print job  212 , i.e., a name of a file that is to be printed. 
   A transmitter  220  is also included in the portable telephone  200 . The transmitter  220  transmits data via a wireless link  222  to any electronic device having a compatible wireless receiver such as, in this example, the laser printer  202 . The wireless link  222  may be a radio frequency (RF) link, an infrared (IR) link, or any other practical wireless communications protocol. The transmitter  220  transmits the printer command  214 ′ and the print job activation command  216 ′ to the laser printer  202 . 
   The laser printer  202  includes a processor  224 , a control panel  226  and a receiver  228 . The control panel  226  may or may not include an alphanumeric keypad (not shown), but it is not necessary to be able to enter alphanumeric data into the laser printer  202  via an alphanumeric keypad to comply with the described implementations. 
   The laser printer  202  also includes memory  230 . The memory  230  includes a print job  212 ″, which is the print job  212 ,  212 ′ that is included in the portable telephone  200  prior to being transmitted to the laser printer  202 . An activation command  216 ″ is shown in the memory  230 . The activation command  216 ″ is the activation command  216 ′ sent by the transmitter  220  of the portable telephone  200 . The memory  230  also includes one or more passwords  232  that are associated with printer users that may enter activation commands to print confidential print jobs. 
   The features shown and described in  FIG. 1  and  FIG. 2  will be discussed in greater detail, below, in the discussion of a method that utilizes the portable telephone and the laser printer. Continued reference to the elements and reference numerals of  FIGS. 1 and 2  will be made with reference to  FIG. 3 , below. 
     FIG. 3  is a flow diagram outlining a method for activating confidential print jobs from a portable electronic device. At step  300 , a user selects a file to print by entering the file name  218  of the file. This may be done from a network printer or from the portable electronic device. If the portable device does not have the functionality to allow the user to enter the file name  218 , the device may have another way of allowing the user to specify a file to be printed, such as a file list that the user scrolls through to select the appropriate file name  218 . 
   At step  302 , the sending system—such as the portable telephone  200 —determines if the file (print job  212 ) to be printed contains confidential or personal information that the user desires to keep private. In one implementation, the sending system has been pre-programmed to recognize certain data that, when printed, is to be treated as confidential. If the information is not private (“No” branch, step  302 ), the print job  212 ″ prints on the printer at step  314 . In another implementation, when the user prints information that the user does not wish others to see (“Yes” branch, step  302 ), the user enters a deferred print command  214  at step  304  so the print job  212 ″ does not print until further instructions from the user. 
   In one implementation, a “time-to-live” value may be assigned to any deferred print job, either by the printer or by the sending system. In such a case, the print job  212 ″ is held for the time indicated by the time-to-live value. While the time-to-live value may work to keep inactivated print jobs from building up in the printer, it is also noted that assigning a time-to-live value to a deferred print job may defeat the purpose of the present invention, if the user does not retrieve the deferred print job within the allotted time. 
   If the print job  212  is confidential, the print job  212 ″ remains in the laser printer  202  until the user decides to activate the print job  212 ″. As long as the print job  212 ″ is not activated (“No” branch, step  306 ), the print job  212 ″ is held by the laser printer  202  at step  308 . If the user decides to print the print job  212 ″, then the user enters an activation command  216  via the alphanumeric keypad  206  of the portable telephone  200  at step  310 . The input module  210  receives the activation command  216  from the alphanumeric keypad  206  and stores the activation command  216  in the memory  204  of the portable telephone  200 . The transmitter  220  transmits the activation command  216 ′ to the laser printer  202  via the wireless link  222 . 
   To insure that no other person receives the printed document having confidential information in it, the user enters the activation command  216  when the user is proximally located to the laser printer  202 . 
   At step  312 , a determination is made as to whether the activation command  216 ″ received by the laser printer  202  is an activation command  216 ″ that is associated with the user. The activation command  216  entered by the user is a password (or pass code) that uniquely identifies the user. To this end, the password/pass code is an alphanumeric value so that many passwords may be assigned to many users. Since the activation command  216  is entered on the portable telephone  200  or other electronic device, the control panel  226  on the laser printer  202  may be a simple control panel that does not include an alphanumeric keypad and, thus, the laser printer  202  may be more economical. 
   To facilitate activation command verification, the activation command  216 ″ received by the laser printer  202  is compared to a list of passwords  232  stored in the memory  230  of the laser printer  202 . If the activation command  216 ″ matches a password stored for the user associated with the print job  212 ′ (“Yes” branch, step  312 ), then the print job  212 ′ is printed at step  316 . If the activation command  216 ″ does not match the password  232  associated with the user submitting the print job  212 ′ (“No” branch, step  314 ), then the print job  212 ′ is aborted at step  314 . 
   In another implementation, the user may be given the opportunity to re-enter the activation command  216  if the activation command  216  entered at step  310  does not match the password  232  stored for the user associated with the print job  212 ′. A pre-set number of attempts may be allowed before the print job  212 ′ is aborted at step  314 . 
   CONCLUSION 
   The implementations described herein thus provide for a new way in which a user may activate a print job that is not printed automatically upon submission, such as a print job having confidential information contained therein. Portable electronic devices have become so commonplace in the workforce and in personal use, that it is efficient to transfer the control of print job activation from the printer to such devices. By doing this, a less expensive printer that has a control panel without an alphanumeric keypad may be used whereas, in the past, such activation could only be executed using an alphanumeric keypad on the control panel of the printer. 
   Although the implementations described herein have been described in language specific to structural features and/or methodological steps, it is to be understood that the invention defined in the appended claims is not necessarily limited to the specific features or steps described. Rather, the specific features and steps are disclosed as preferred implementations.

Technology Category: 3