Patent ID: 8645452

Claim:
An in-vehicle communication system, comprising a plurality of gateway apparatuses: and a plurality of electronic control units that are connected to the plurality of gateway apparatuses and receive data distributed from the plurality of gateway apparatuses, wherein each gateway apparatus comprises: a storage section that stores data; a distribution section that distributes data to an electronic control unit; a transmission section that transmits data to another gateway apparatus; a receiving section that receives data from another distribution apparatus; a decision section that performs a decision whether there is data to be distributed or not, on the storage section; a readout section that reads out data from the storage section wherein, when the decision section has decided that there is data on the storage section to be distributed, the readout section reads out only required data to be distributed; and a request section that requests a data transmission wherein, when the decision section has decided that there is not data to be distributed on the storage section of its respective gateway apparatus, but there is data on the storage section of another gateway apparatus to be distributed, the request section requests a data transmission from the gateway apparatus where the data is stored, wherein the distribution section distributes only the required data being read out by the readout section and/or data received by the receiving section.