Patent ID: 7415532

Claim:
A data transfer method for transferring content data to a plurality of transmitter/receiver units scheduled to receive the content data, comprising the steps of: receiving the content data at a first transmitter/receiver unit, the first transmitter/receiver unit being one of the plurality of transmitter/receiver units; receiving a scheduled transfer destination database at the first transmitter/receiver unit, the scheduled transfer database including a list of the plurality of transmitter/receiver units scheduled to receive the content data; updating the received scheduled transfer destination database at the first transmitter/receiver unit by changing a status flag associated with the first transmitter/receiver unit in the list to specify that the content data has already been received by the first transmitter/receiver unit; at the first transmitter/receiver unit, arbitrarily selecting a second transmitter/receiver unit from the list in the received scheduled transfer destination database, the second transmitter/receiver being arbitrarily selected from among those transmitter/receiver units specified as not having yet received the content data by respective status flags in the list in the received scheduled transfer destination database; at the first transmitter/receiver unit, adding the updated scheduled transfer destination database to the received content data; and transferring the database-added content data from the first transmitter/receiver unit to the second transmitter/receiver unit.