Patent ID: 8045693

Claim:
A message reception confirmation method in which a message sending device obtains a reception confirmation of a message sent to a particular message receiving device under a multihop communication environment, comprising: a first step of holding information in the particular message receiving device; a second step of sending the message from the message sending device; a third step of the particular message receiving device's generating reception authentication information of the message; a fourth step of the particular message receiving device's generating a hash value as a reception confirmation information of the message by using the reception confirmation information of at least one other message receiving device, if any, and the reception authentication information of the message as an input; a fifth step of the particular message receiving device's sending the reception confirmation information of the message to a reception confirmation information verification device; a sixth step of the reception confirmation information verification device's verifying the reception confirmation information received; and a seventh step of the message sending device's obtaining the reception confirmation of the particular message to the message receiving device based on the result of verification in the sixth step, wherein the information held in the first step includes: information for discriminating each message receiving device; an authentication key that is shared by the communications terminal and each message receiving device one-to-one, in order to authenticate each message receiving device; and route information from each message receiving device to the communications terminal.