Patent attributes
A peripheral device connected to a local electronic device which is connected to at least one communication network can communicate with a peripheral device attached to a remote electronic device as if the remote peripheral device was locally attached. Data designated for the remote peripheral device is received by a local virtual device object and transmitted to the remote electronic device via at least one of the electronic devices communication interfaces or peripheral devices. Data received by the remote electronic device's communication interface or peripheral device is written to the peripheral device at the remote electronic device by a virtual device object. For compensation of different transfer speeds or outages between the peripheral device and the communication interface or another peripheral device the virtual device provides the ability to utilize the virtual devices emulation driver that is attached to the virtual device object as an I/O buffer. As the invention provides a generic method for virtualization of a remote peripheral device it works independent from specific types of devices and Operating Systems. As the invention works with synchronous and asynchronous communication standards and does not require a specific network transport protocol it can be used with any available communication interface or peripheral device of the electronic device.
