Patent ID: 8368923

Claim:
An image forming system, comprising a plurality of image forming apparatuses connected to each other in a state of allowing data communication among them, each of said image forming apparatuses comprising: a communication section that performs the data communication; a storage section that stores image data; an information generating section that generates log information of the image data, the log information including position information indicative of an address of the image data in the system and lifetime information that defines how long image data is to be stored in the storage section; a reader/writer that writes the log information generated by the information generating section to an IC card and reads log information of desired image data stored in the IC card; a data reading section that, based on the log information of the desired image data, identifies a storage section which stores the desired image data, and transmits via the communication section the log information of the desired image data and a request to send the desired image data to an image forming apparatus which comprises the storage section so identified; an information providing section that provides the lifetime information to the image data; and a data updating section that sets time to delete the image data from the storage section based on the lifetime information provided to the image data, wherein the plurality of image forming apparatuses comprises a first image forming apparatus, a second image forming apparatus, and a third image forming apparatus, and, in a case where the first image forming apparatus performs image forming operation based on the desired image data and both the second and the third image forming apparatuses store the desired image data, the first image forming apparatus selects one of the second and third image forming apparatuses which realizes the data communication lower in cost of higher in speed, and transmits the log information and the request to send the desired image data to the image forming apparatus thus selected.