Patent ID: 8423671

Claim:
A middleware device for supporting compatibility of devices on a home network, the middleware device comprising: a computer processor comprising: a discovery unit which receives a discovery message based on a protocol among different protocols utilized by different devices existing on the home network, wherein the different protocols include a Universal Plug-and-Play (UPnP) protocol and a web service protocol; a description unit which creates a description file of a predetermined device which is requested by a control point using a request message based on one of the different protocols and converts the description file which is created such that the description file can be processed by the control point which requested the description file; and an information management unit which manages service information and information on devices existing on the home network based on the discovery message and the description file, wherein the discovery unit determines whether the protocol of the discovery message is the UPnP protocol or the web service protocol and acquires description information of the discovery message corresponding to the determined protocol, and wherein the information management unit checks whether a controlled device corresponding to the received discovery message is registered in the information management unit based on the received discovery message, and if it is determined that the controlled device is not registered in the information management unit, the information management unit creates device and service information of the controlled device directly from the description information of the discovery message, and stores the created device and service information of the controlled device in the information management unit, and if it is determined that the controlled device is registered in the information management unit, the discovery unit converts the received discovery message to a message based on a protocol that can be processed by the control point to which the discovery message is to be transmitted in the case when the received discovery message is received from the controlled device, and unicasts a response message with respect to the received discovery message to the control point, based on a protocol that can be processed by the control point in the case when the received discovery message is received from the control point.