Patent ID: 7868895

Claim:
An image processing apparatus comprising: a first attribute setting unit constructed to set first attribute information of an image data file; a second attribute setting unit constructed to set second attribute information of the image data file; and an input output controller constructed to write and read out the image data file to and from an external storage medium, wherein the first attribute information is stored in the image data file stored in the external storage medium, wherein the second attribute information is stored in an area in the external storage medium storing the image data file, which a file system handles, and which is used to manage the image data file stored in the external storage medium, and wherein both of the first attribute information and the second attribute information include information used to determine whether an alteration of the image data file is inhibited or not, the apparatus further comprising: a first determination unit constructed to determine whether or not the first attribute information is stored in the image data file written in the external storage medium; an attribute determination unit constructed to determine an attribute of the image data file based on the first attribute information when it is determined that the first attribute information is stored in the image data file, and determine an attribute of the image data file based on the second attribute information when it is determined that the first attribute information is not stored in the image data file; a second determination unit constructed to determine contents of the attribute of the image data file determined by said attribute determination unit; a third determination unit constructed to determine contents of the second attribute information when said second determination unit determines that the attribute has the contents that do not inhibit the image data file from being altered; an attribute information altering unit constructed to alter the contents of the second attribute information to contents that do not inhibit the image data file from being altered when said third determination unit determines that the second attribute information has contents that inhibit the image data file from being altered; and an accepting unit which accepts an altering instruction of the image data file, wherein said input output controller overwrites the external storage medium with the image data file altered based on the altering instruction accepted by said accepting unit.