Patent ID: 7577105

Claim:
A cooperation information managing apparatus made to manage cooperation information in a system including a first unit retaining a first identifier and a second unit retaining a second identifier for reading out said first identifier from said first unit to transmit, as said cooperation information, a combination of said first identifier and said second identifier, said cooperation information managing apparatus comprising: shared number retaining means for retaining the number of second units currently using said first unit (which will be referred to hereinafter as “current use number”) and an upper limit value of the number of second units capable of sharing said first unit according to said first identifier; sharing control means for, upon receipt of said cooperation information from said second unit, making a decision on whether or not said first unit is available for said second unit that sends said cooperation information by controlling the sharing of said first unit among said second units on the basis of each of said identifiers included in said cooperation information and said current use number and upper limit value in said shared number retaining means; and signal issuing means for issuing a control signal for controlling a state of said first unit to said second unit if the decision result by said sharing control means is positive, and issuing a notification signal for notifying an unavailable state of said first unit to said second unit if the decision result by said sharing control means is negative.