Patent ID: 7420930

Claim:
A communication apparatus, which is to be connected to a network to establish, one or more connections with one or more processing apparatus connected to the network, to perform at least one of transmission and reception of data, said communication apparatus comprising: a reception device for receiving a disconnection request for disconnection of said connection, from said processing apparatus; a judgment device for judging whether the disconnection request as received is legal or not; and a protection device for causing, when there was made a judgment that the disconnection request as received is not legal, disablement of execution of a disconnection processing to protect said connection; a storage device for storing the number of established connections for each connected processing apparatus, which is indicative of the number of connections established with the processing apparatus, for each processing apparatus through which a request for establishment of said connection was made; and the number of established connections for each connected processing apparatus calculating device for, when said connection with the processing apparatus is to be disconnected, subtracting the number of connections to be disconnected from said number of established connections for each connected processing apparatus corresponding to the connection prior to disconnection, wherein: said judgment device judges, when the disconnection request is received from the processing apparatus in which the apparatus-establishment number has already become null, that the disconnection request is not legal.