Patent ID: 8166137

Claim:
A Universal Plug and Play (UPnP) compliant network device, comprising: a plurality of service devices configured to execute a service in response to a request from a client on a network; a single device controller configured to control the plurality of service devices; and a network protocol controller configured to operate on a message in accordance with both a UPnP protocol and a communications protocol different from the UPnP protocol and configured to receive from a client on the network a message having a message header and a message body, and to transfer content of the message body to the device controller, wherein the network protocol controller has a single IP address that is commonly used as an IP address of the plurality of service devices, each of the service devices not having an unique IP address, wherein the network protocol controller interprets the message header according to the UPnP protocol without interpreting the content of the message body received from the client, and transmits the message body to the device controller according to the communications protocol different from the UPnP protocol, and the device controller interprets the content of the message body received from the network protocol controller, and causes one or more of the plurality of service devices to execute a service according to a result of the interpretation.