Patent ID: 8346406

Claim:
An electronic control apparatus comprising: a first microcomputer among the plurality of the microcomputers for outputting, to an external device, software product-number information indicative of a product number of software that is used in the apparatus in response to an output request from the external device; a storage unit for storing the product-number information and priority information of each of the plurality of microcomputers, wherein the product-number information has a value that is updated when the software is updated in the plurality of microcomputers, and wherein the priority information is used for determining which of the plurality of microcomputers should be outputting, as the software product-number information, the product-number information stored therein to the external device; and an output unit for outputting, as the software product-number information, the product-number information to the external device from a highest priority microcomputer after determining the highest priority microcomputer based on the priority information stored in each of the plurality of microcomputers including the first microcomputer.