Patent ID: 8832089

Claim:
An information processing device to which an electric appliance is communicably connected, comprising: means for receiving a data packet that receives the data packet from an electric appliance, the received data packet including a packet for indicating a status of use of each communication port of the electric appliance; means for storing a definition file corresponding to each of a plurality of types of electric appliances, wherein each definition file includes defining data based on an expected status of use of each communication port associated with the corresponding type of electric appliance, the means for storing also storing a score associated with the expected status for each definition file; means for scoring that compares the status of use of each communication port indicated in the received data packet with the expected status of use of each communication port contained in each definition file, identifies each definition file for which the expected status of use of each communication port corresponds to the status of use of each communication port indicated in the received data packet, and adds the stored score associated therewith to a total score corresponding to each of the plurality of types of electric appliances so as to perform scoring for each definition file based on the stored scores; and means for determining a type of an electric appliance that extracts a stored definition file corresponding to a highest one of the total score provided by the means for scoring and determines from the defining data of the extracted definition file the type of the electric appliance from which the means for receiving received the data packet.