Patent ID: 8331957

Claim:
A mobile terminal comprising: a storage device configured to store, in an association with application specifying information that identifies an application to be executed, request context information identifying a user's context that is a condition for executing the application, environment specifying information indicating an environment in which a user of the mobile terminal is located, and corresponding context information indicating the user's context; a receiver configured to receive one environment specifying information and one result information from a context management server assigned to an environment in which the user is located, the one environment specifying information indicating the environment, and the one result information indicating the user's context in the environment as detected by the context management server, which is stored in one corresponding context information by the storage device; a determination unit configured to determine, by querying the storage device, whether an association exists between (a) the one corresponding context information, including the one environment specifying information and the one result information received by the receiver, and (b) one application specifying information stored in the storage device; a processor configured to execute an application corresponding to the one application specifying information when (1) the determination unit determines that the association exists and (2) one request context information associated with the one application in the storage device coincides with the one corresponding context information, so that the corresponding context information satisfies a condition for executing the application that is established by the one request context information; an obtaining unit configured to request and obtain, in response to the determining unit determining that the association does not exist, one determination context descriptive information from the context management server, the one determination context descriptive information describing a set of context elements for determining the user's context; and a generating unit configured to generate corresponding context information based on the request context information stored in the storage device and the determination context descriptive information obtained by the obtaining unit, and storing and registering the generated corresponding context information in the storage device in an association with the one application specifying information, wherein the processor executes the application corresponding to the one application specifying information when the one request context information associated with the one application in the storage device coincides with the generated corresponding context information, so that the generated corresponding context information satisfies a condition for executing the application that is established by the one request context information.