Patent ID: 7801870

Claim:
A method of managing shared information synchronized between one device and at least one other device in a Universal Plug and Play (UPnP) network, the method comprising: storing version information of the synchronized shared information of the at least one other device; comparing version information received from the at least one other device with the stored version information; and updating the synchronized shared information of the one device, based on a result of the comparing, wherein the updating of the synchronized shared information comprises: receiving changed shared information corresponding to the received version information from the at least one other device, wherein the received shared information includes a counter value for each part of the shared information of the at least one other device, the counter value increasing whenever a corresponding part of the shared information of the at least one other device is changed; and changing at least a part of the synchronized shared information of the one device by referring to the counter value for the part of the synchronized shared information of a plurality of other devices that have changed the part.