Patent ID: 7370093

Claim:
An address decision system for deciding an address of an electronic apparatus connected to a network, the electronic apparatus having a function to automatically assign itself an address for communication, the address decision system comprising: a determination device that determines whether the electronic apparatus should automatically assign itself an address to establish communication via the network; a verification device that verifies whether there are electronic apparatuses in the network which have the same address; and a comparison device that compares priorities of the electronic apparatuses having the same address, a first electronic apparatus connected to the network comprising: a first address decision unit that decides an address of the first electronic apparatus; a nonvolatile storage unit that stores the address of the first electronic address; a first control unit that assigns the first electronic apparatus the stored address if the comparison device determines that priority of the first electronic apparatus is higher than priority of a second electronic apparatus, and assigns the first electronic apparatus another address decided by the first address decision unit if the comparison device determines that the priority of the first electronic apparatus is lower than the priority of the second electronic apparatus, when the first electronic apparatus is started and the verification device verifies that the stored address stored in the storage unit is already being used by the second electronic apparatus, the second electronic apparatus comprising: a second address decision unit that decides an address of the second electronic apparatus; and a second control unit that assigns the second electronic apparatus another address decided by the second address decision unit if the comparison device determines that the priority of the second electronic apparatus is lower than the priority of the first electronic apparatus.