Patent ID: 8319984

Claim:
An image forming system comprising: a terminal apparatus; an image forming apparatus that executes a process in response to a service request from the terminal apparatus; wherein, the terminal apparatus is configured to (i) send user identification information with a login request to the image forming apparatus, (ii) receive from the image forming apparatus a token issued to a user who has logged into the image forming apparatus, and (iii) send the service request that includes the token written in Web Services Description Language (WSDL) as Simple Object Access Protocol (SOAP) envelop to the image forming apparatus; and wherein, the image forming apparatus comprises: a network processing unit configured to perform data communication using the SOAP with the terminal apparatus, a login processing unit configured to (i) permit the user to log in when the user identification information received by the network processing unit from the terminal apparatus is valid user identification information and (ii) send the token to the terminal apparatus as at least one of a security token and a binary security token of Web Services Security in the SOAP envelop as a response to the login request, (iii) permit the user to log out when a logout request that includes the token written in the WSDL as the SOAP envelop is received by the network processing unit from the terminal apparatus, and (iv) invalidate the token of the user who has logged out, a determination unit configured to determine, when the network processing unit receives the service request that includes the token written in the WSDL as the SOAP envelop, whether the token is a valid token, and a service providing unit configured to execute the process designated by the service request when it is determined by the determination unit that the token is a valid token.