Patent ID: 7844694

Claim:
A communication system including: an image forming apparatus that receives a signal having image data from an external apparatus, processes the received image data, and outputs the processed image data to a recording medium; and a relay apparatus that relays signals between the external apparatus and the image forming apparatus, the relay apparatus comprising: a transmission and reception unit that receives a signal sent from the external apparatus to the image forming apparatus, and relays the received signal to the image forming apparatus; an analysis unit that determines that a destination of the received signal is the image forming apparatus; and a determination unit that determines that the received signal does not contain image data to be processed by the image forming apparatus in response to the analysis unit determining that the destination of the received signal is the image forming apparatus, wherein the transmission and reception unit withholds the relaying of the received signal to the image forming apparatus in response to the determination unit determining that the received signal does not contain image to be processed by the image forming apparatus; and wherein the withholding of the relaying apparatus comprises of one of responding to a sender of the received signal on behalf of the image forming apparatus without forwarding the received signal to the image forming apparatus, and deleting the received signal without forwarding the received signal to the image forming apparatus.