Multiplex communications – Pathfinding or routing – Switching a message which includes an address header
Reexamination Certificate
1998-12-31
2003-12-16
Kizou, Hassan (Department: 2662)
Multiplex communications
Pathfinding or routing
Switching a message which includes an address header
C370S353000, C709S203000, C709S219000
Reexamination Certificate
active
06665303
ABSTRACT:
BACKGROUND OF THE INVENTION
1. Field of the Invention
The present invention relates to a contents processing device for which there is a need to carry out communications with a server device located outside a local network to which the contents processing device is normally connected, and a gateway device for providing a service to mediate such communications on behalf of the contents processing device.
2. Description of the Background Art
Recently the rapid progresses of communication technology such as Internet and digital technology such as DVD (Digital Video Disk) are attracting much attentions from a variety of fields. These technologies are beginning to spread beyond the field of information communication to fields such as broadcasting, AV (Audio Visual) devices, home appliances, etc., and it is expected that the merging of various fields mentioned above will also progress rapidly in future.
In particular, even for a home where no sophisticated communication technology has been necessary up until now, the above noted progress of the communication technology is giving rise to new technologies such as applications to the data communication technology based on advance of the modem technology, to the home network technology such as IEEE 1394, etc.
Now, when further progresses in the digitalization and the networking of AV devices are made in future, there will arise a problem regarding handling of digital contents. Namely, there will be problems of improper copying or improper processing of the digital contents.
For this reason, there has been a proposition of a scheme for applying the cryptographic techniques to the above noted digital contents such that replay of digital contents is permitted only to those devices which are registered in advance.
There has also been a proposition of a scheme called Divx scheme in which the fact that the contents have been replayed is remembered by the AV device and a log history is notified to a charging server later on so as to realize the charging with respect to the replay, in addition to the above noted replay permission control. There are also many propositions of various other schemes such as a scheme for permitting replay only when the replay condition is satisfied, a scheme for permitting replay by obtaining a permission from an external license server even when the replay condition is not satisfied, and so on.
These schemes require the AV device to have a network function such that the required procedure can be carried out as the AV device carries out communications with a license server/charging server located on a public network.
Also, many of the future AV devices such as Internet TV and push button news delivery are expected to be those that presuppose the networking. Presently, a telephone network is the only available network infra-structure that is sufficiently developed up to the home environment, so that it is reasonable to expect that the communications with servers such as license server, charging server, news server, WWW server, etc. will be carried out through the telephone network except for some highly advanced environment.
However, the future AV devices to be introduced into the home are expected to have interfaces to a home network such as IEEE 1394. If such a future AV device is also to be connected to the telephone network as described above, it would become necessary to provide wirings for the home network and wirings for the telephone network connection so that the future AV device would inevitably become very complicated.
The same problem also arises when there is a need for a device connected to a local network to carry out communications with another device through a network other than that local network.
SUMMARY OF THE INVENTION
It is therefore an object of the present invention to provide a gateway device which enables a contents processing device such as AV device that is connected to a local network such as home network to carry out communications through an external network such as telephone network even when no interface to the external network is provided in the contents processing device.
It is another object of the present invention to provide a contents processing device such as AV device which is capable of carrying out communications with an external network such as telephone network by being connected to a local network such as home network even when no interface to the external network is provided therein.
According to one aspect of the present invention there is provided a gateway device, comprising: a first network interface for connection to a home network; a second network interface for connection to a telephone network; a call set up unit for carrying out a call set up with respect to a specified address on the telephone network, upon receiving a solicitation for a call set up with respect to the specified address on the telephone network from a contents processing device connected to the home network; and a transfer unit for transferring data transmitted from the contents processing device to a connection established by the call set up, and data arriving from the connection established by the call set up to the contents processing device.
This gateway device can be a home gateway, for example. The contents information device can be an AV device such as DVD player or a PC, for example. The home network can be a local network such as that of IEEE 1394 bus, for example. The telephone network can be a public network in general, and the address on the telephone network can be given by a telephone number. The address specified by the contents processing device can be that of the license server, for example.
In this aspect of the present invention, it becomes possible for the contents processing device to carry out communications with the server device indicated by the specified address on the telephone network through the home network, so that it is not absolutely necessary for the contents processing device to have an interface to the telephone network (public network interface) and therefore it is possible to realize a considerable simplification of network wirings.
Also, in this gateway device, the call set up unit may receive the solicitation made by the contents processing device which has a need to communicate with the specified address in order to process a specific contents information.
Here, the need to communicate with the specified address arises, for example, when there is a need to obtain a permission (such as that given by charging or that given by license contract) for applying some processing such as decryption or replay to a specific contents information at the contents processing device, and this permission is to be obtained by communicating with the license server through the telephone network.
Also, this gateway device may further comprises a notification unit for notifying that the gateway device is in a state capable of responding to the solicitation, through the home network.
For example, when the second network interface is not connected to the telephone network, this gateway device is not in a state capable of responding to the solicitation, so that this notification is not made.
This notification can be made from this gateway device to the devices connected to the home network either actively by using the service location protocol, for example, or passively by writing information to be notified into an IEEE 1212 register, for example (so as to create a state where a device connected to the home network can learn this information by accessing the IEEE 1212 register).
In this way, the contents processing device can recognize the case where it is possible to make the connection to the telephone network through this gateway device and the case where it is not.
According to another aspect of the present invention there is provided a contents processing device, comprising: a network interface for connection to a home network; a protocol processing unit for executing protocol processing for communications with a server device through a telephone network; a solicitation unit
Akiyama Koichiro
Hashimoto Mikio
Kambayashi Toru
Saito Takeshi
Elallam Ahmed
Kabushiki Kaisha Toshiba
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