Patent ID: 8239353

Claim:
A transmission system comprising: a transmission apparatus that transmits metadata relating to content via a network; and a reception apparatus that receives the metadata transmitted from the transmission apparatus; wherein the transmission apparatus includes a computer-readable storage medium comprising instructions that, when executed, perform the steps of: storing the metadata including fragment updating management information in units of fragments; constructing a document from the metadata contained in a plurality of fragments excluding the fragment updating management information and for generating a delivery unit including the document; compressing the metadata contained in the delivery unit; adding document updating management information to the compressed metadata contained in the delivery unit, wherein the document updating management information comprises the fragment updating management information of each of the fragments constructing the document; and delivering via the network the delivery unit containing the compressed metadata and the document updating management information; and wherein the reception apparatus includes a computer-readable storage medium comprising instructions that, when executed, perform the steps of: receiving the compressed metadata contained in the delivery unit; decompressing the received compressed metadata; storing the decompressed metadata; and copying the document updating management information contained in the delivery unit and assigning the document updating management information to the fragments as fragment updating management information.