Patent ID: 8280302

Claim:
A communicating device for performing communication via a communication medium, said communicating device having a plurality of electrodes capacitively coupled with an outside, said communicating device comprising: communication processing means for performing communication processing; connecting means for connecting said communication processing means to said plurality of electrodes; and connection controlling means for controlling said connecting means to selectively connect said plurality of electrodes in an open circuit, a first electrode of said plurality of electrodes being capacitively coupled with said communication medium, to a first terminal of said communication processing means, and a second electrode of said plurality of electrodes being capacitively coupled with a space more strongly than said first electrode to a second terminal of said communication processing means, wherein said first electrode is selected to couple with said communication medium based on a proximity of said first electrode to said communication medium, and said second electrode is selected to couple with said space based on a proximity of said second electrode to said space; said connection controlling means includes: signal level detecting means detecting a signal level, the signal level determined by detecting a potential value across a predetermined load resistance; and electrode selecting means selecting one of the first electrode and second electrode as a transmission signal electrode, the selecting based on the signal level determined by the signal level detecting means, wherein the first electrode is selected if the signal level equals or is higher than a predetermined threshold, and the second electrode is selected if the signal is lower than a predetermined threshold.