Patent ID: 7284013

Claim:
An information processing apparatus for searching for a device on a network, comprising: a reception unit that receives, from the device on the network, location information of said device at a first hierarchical level and location information of said device at a hierarchical level higher than the first hierarchical level, respectively; a memory that stores the location information respectively received by said reception unit; a search unit that searches for, according to a search condition received from another information processing apparatus, a device which satisfies the search condition from said memory, the search condition including the location information at the first hierarchical level or the location information at the hierarchical level higher than the first hierarchical level; a generation unit that generates a search result by said search unit, the search result including the location information of the searched device at the first hierarchical level and the location information of the searched device at the hierarchical level higher than the first hierarchical level; and a transmission unit that transmits the search result generated by the generation unit to the another information processing apparatus, wherein said memory stores map data corresponding to the first hierarchical level and map data corresponding to the hierarchical level higher than the first hierarchical level, and the map data is used to display a location of the device, and said transmission unit transmits the map data corresponding to the first hierarchical level and the map data corresponding to the hierarchical level higher than the first hierarchical level, to the another information processing apparatus.