Patent ID: 7680896

Claim:
A device control apparatus connected to a plurality of client apparatuses and a plurality of devices, the device control apparatus including a plurality of device control processes which respectively correspond to the plurality of devices, comprising: a first receiving unit configured to receive a request from one of the plurality of the client apparatuses for access to a specified device control process from among the plurality of device control processes; a judging unit configured to judge whether or not the specified device control process designated by said received request is in an activated state; an activating unit configured to activate the specified device control process designated by said received request, in a case where said judging unit judges that the specified device control process is not in an activated state; a second receiving unit configured to receive information to be used as a destination of data transmitted from the client apparatus, from the specified device control process activated by said activating unit; a transmitting unit configured to transmit the information received by said second receiving unit to the client apparatus as a response to the request received by said first receiving unit; a third receiving unit configured to in a case where the specified device control process designated by said received request is in use by another client apparatus different from said client apparatus that transmitted the request, receive a request from the client apparatus that transmitted the request for forcedly excluding said another client apparatus from using the specified device control process; an exclusion unit configured to forcedly exclude said another client apparatus from using the specified device control process based on the request received by the third receiving unit; and a notifying unit configured to notify the client apparatus that transmitted the request that the forced exclusion of said another client apparatus has ended, in response to the request received by said third receiving unit, wherein the plurality of device control processes can be executed in parallel under respective controls of the plurality of different client apparatuses, and the specified device control process receives data which is transmitted from the client apparatus using the information transmitted by said transmitting unit, and downloads the received data to the device corresponding thereto.