Patent ID: 8516145

Claim:
An information processing apparatus which transmits data generated by a device manufacturing apparatus for manufacturing a device to at least one terminal, the apparatus comprising: a communication unit configured to communicate with the at least one terminal; a transmission request processor configured to accept or reject a transmission request which has been received from the at least one terminal by the communication unit, the transmission request including, as types of transmission requests, a first-class transmission request and a second-class transmission request, the first-class transmission request being a request to transmit, every time data to be transmitted in response to the first-class transmission request is prepared in the information processing apparatus, the data in preference to data corresponding to the second-class information request, the second-class transmission request allowing transmission of data corresponding to the second-class transmission request to be temporarily suspended; and a transmission controller configured to control the communication unit to transmit, in response to a transmission request accepted by the transmission request processor, data corresponding to the transmission request to a terminal, of the at least one terminal, which has transmitted the transmission request, wherein when the communication unit receives a new first-class transmission request from the at least one terminal, the transmission request processor accepts the new first-class transmission request if a sum of transmission rates of the respective data concurrently transmitted from the communication unit in response to transmission requests which has been already accepted by the transmission request processor and a transmission rate at which data is transmitted in response to the new first-class transmission request does not exceed the allowable transmission rate, and rejects the new first-class transmission request if the sum of the transmission rates exceeds the allowable transmission rate, wherein when the communication unit receives a new second-class transmission request from the at least one terminal, the transmission request processor accepts the new second-class transmission request regardless of transmission rates of the respective data concurrently transmitted from the communication unit in response to transmission requests which has been already accepted by the transmission request processor and a transmission rate at which data is transmitted in response to the new second-class transmission request, and wherein a transmission rate of data transmitted from the communication unit is an amount of data transmitted per unit time from the communication unit.