Patent ID: 9430171
Filing Date: 2016-08-30
CPC Classification: G06F,H04L,H04N

Claim Text:
1. A management apparatus comprising: a user information management unit that manages information about groups to which individual users belong, in association with user identification information identifying the users; a device information management unit that manages, for one device or each of a plurality of devices, information about a main group to which the device belongs and information about a sub-group, which is different from the main group, for which use of the device is permitted, in association with each other; a controller that controls, when accepting a request for using a device from an information terminal, use of the device specified by the request in accordance with whether or not information about a group managed by the user information management unit in association with user identification information of a user who operates the information terminal is included in information about the main group or sub-group managed by the device information management unit in association with the device specified by the request; a first determining unit that determines whether or not a group to which the user who operates the information terminal belongs matches the main group to which the device specified by the request belongs; and a second determining unit that determines, when the first determining unit determines that there is no match, whether or not the group to which the user who operates the information terminal belongs matches any one of sub-groups associated with the device specified by the request, wherein the controller permits use of the device specified by the request when any one of the first determining unit and the second determining unit determines that there is a match.