Patent ID: 6963925

Claim:
A gateway (GW) apparatus for communicating between networks, said GW apparatus comprising: (a) first message input/output means for sending and receiving a message to/from a first network; (b) second message input/output means for communicating with a second network based on an internet protocol (IP); (c) a first plug-in detector for detecting a plug-in of a first device to the first network; (d) a virtual device functioning as a gateway for the first device plugged in the first network and a second device plugged in the second network to communicate with each other, said virtual device using table look-up to convert commands issued by each of the first and second devices into commands the second and first devices, respectively, comprehend so that the table includes correspondences between commands used in the first network and the second network for converting the commands between protocols used in the first network and the second network; (e) a virtual-device-controller for providing said virtual device corresponding to the first device plugged-in with an IP identifier for the second network to access said virtual device responsive to information supplied from said first plug-in detector; (f) a pseudo-address generator for generating a pseudo address for said virtual device to communicate with the first device in the first network upon receiving a connection request from the second device in the second network, and for outputting the pseudo address to said virtual-device-controller; and (g) an address-correspondence-controller for controlling correspondence between the IP identifier and the pseudo address provided to said virtual device by said virtual-device-controller.