Communication apparatus

• US 20040199625A1
• Filed: 12/12/2003
• Published: 10/07/2004
• Est. Priority Date: 12/13/2002
• Status: Active Grant

• Current Assignee: Canon Kabushiki Kaisha (Canon Inc.)
• Original Assignee: Canon Ayutthaya Limited (Canon Inc.)
• Inventors: Makino, Jun
• Granted Patent: US 7,533,165 B2
• Time in Patent Office: Days
• US Class Current: 709/223
• CPC Class Codes: H04L 61/5038 for local use, e.g. in LAN or USB networks, or in a controller area network [CAN]
• CPC Class Codes: H04L 67/12 specially adapted for proprietary or special-purpose networking environments, e.g. medical networks, sensor networks, networks in vehicles or remote metering networks
• CPC Class Codes: H04L 69/329 in the application layer [OSI layer 7]
• CPC Class Codes: H04L 9/40 Network security protocols

Abstract

A control point is provided with the function of forming an IP address list of UPnP devices providing a predetermined service, inquiring each UPnP device on the IP address list about the list of IP addresses possessed by the UPnP device, and determining from a response to the inquiry an IP address to be used for the service. The UPnP device is provided with the function of responding to the inquiry from the control point by sending back the response indicating the number of acquired IP addresses, the value of each IP address and the IP address to be used with priority, and freeing the IP addresses different from the IP address determined by the control point. An erroneous operation by a user can therefore be avoided.

Claims

1. A communication apparatus for receiving a predetermined service from another apparatus on a network, comprising:

an extraction unit for extracting information of a proper device capable of providing the predetermined service from information on the apparatus on the network; and

list forming means for forming a list of numbers acquired by the proper device included in the information extracted by said extraction unit.

2. A communication method of receiving a predetermined service from another apparatus on a network, comprising steps of:

extracting information of a proper device capable of providing the predetermined service from information on the apparatus on the network; and

forming a list of numbers acquired by the proper device included in the information extracted by said extraction unit.