Panasonic Corporation

Matsushita Electric Industrial Co., Ltd.

Panasonic Intellectual Property Corporation of America

Masanori Nakanishi

Yasushi Uesaka

Masayuki Kozuka

Hideki Matsushima

Shunji Harada

Teruto Hirota

Masaya Miyazaki

Kenji Tagawa

Mitsuhiro Inoue

Taihei Yugawa

Kouji Miura

Tohru Nakahara

Akio Higashi

Takaaki Namba

Takashi Matsuo

Susumu Kobayashi

Eiji Ueda

Hiroki Murakami

Tetsuji Sumita

Takeshi Ohmura

A distribution serverdistributes a content via a network, and a KIOSK terminalreceives the content via the network and records the content in an SD memory cardA customer devicereceives a content via the SD memory cardchecks out the content and records a copy on a recording medium. SD-Audio playerstoreceive a copy of the content and play back the copy. Here, the KIOSK terminalrecords a Usage Rule that certifies the right to control recording of content on the SD memory cardMove Control Information showing the number of times that moving of rights is permitted is set in the Usage Rule.

Distribution system, semiconductor memory card, receiving apparatus, computer-readable recording medium and receiving method

A content usage device includes (i) a license management unit that holds license information and (ii) a content output unit that uses a content in compliance with license information and outputs the content in at least one manner of a sound, video and data. The license management unit, upon receiving a request of license information from the content output unit, requests a license management unit of another content usage device to transfer the license information and acquires the license information, and passes the acquired license information to the content output unit. The content output unit uses a content in compliance with the license information passed from the license management unit.

Content usage device and network system, and license information acquisition method

A mail gateway generates an identifier for each attached file included in the e-mail addressed to a user and held in a mail server, and notifies a mail terminal belonging to the user of a list of generated IDs. When the user selects attached files that the user wants to attach to the e-mail from the list of IDs that is notified from the mail gateway, the mail gateway constructs e-mail including the selected attached files and the mail server transmits the constructed e-mail to addresses of the receivers of the e-mail.

System for transmission/reception of e-mail with attached files

A management device of a license management system acquires a usage request of a content from an SD card or a printer via a relay device, analyzes the acquired usage request, acquires usage environment information of the SD card or the printer from the relay device, analyzes the acquired usage environment information, generates license information including a usage rule corresponding to the analysis results of the usage request and the usage environment information, generates instruction information indicating how to handle the license information in the relay device based on the analysis result of the usage environment information, embeds the generated instruction information in the license information, and sends the license information to the relay device. The relay device receives the license information in which the instruction information is embedded, and transfers the received license information to the SD card or the printer according to the instruction information which is embedded in the license information with performing certain processing or without performing any processing to the license information.

License management system, license management device, relay device and terminal device

A distribution serverdistributes a content via a network, and a KIOSK terminalreceives the content via the network and records the content in an SD memory card. A customer devicereceives a content via the SD memory card, checks out the content and records a copy on a recording medium. SD-Audio playerstoreceive a copy of the content and play back the copy. Here, the KIOSK terminalrecords a Usage Rule that certifies the right to control recording of content on the SD memory card. Move Control Information showing the number of times that moving of rights is permitted is set in the Usage Rule.

Growing community of inventors

Osaka, Japan

Masanori Nakanishi