Patent ID: 7760232

Claim:
A slave apparatus capable of communicating with a master device through a predetermined communication bus and having a plurality of communication modes of diverse kinds, said slave apparatus comprising: a communication controlling unit operable to select a communication mode from the plurality of communication modes, the plurality of communication modes include at least two modes selected from a mode corresponding to an imaging class, a mode corresponding to a mass storage class, a mode corresponding to a customized class, and a mode corresponding to a streaming class; and a judging unit operable to transmit to said master device a notification code for notifying the communication mode presently selected by said communication controlling unit, and then judge whether a command in response to said notification code is received from said master device within a predetermined time or not, wherein: said communication controlling unit performs control on the basis of a judgment result of said judging unit in such a manner that (1) when the command in response to said notification code is received from said master device within the predetermined time, a state permitting communication with said master device is determined based on the received command, and that (2) when said command is not received within said predetermined time, said communication controlling unit electrically releases connection to said master device temporarily and then restores the connection; and by the time when said slave apparatus and said master device resume communication as a result of said restoration of connection, said communication controlling unit selects a communication mode from the plurality of communication modes so that its presently set-up communication mode is changed to a different communication mode from that used immediately before said release.