Patent 7565209 was granted and assigned to Panasonic on July, 2009 by the United States Patent and Trademark Office.
A device control apparatus (100) according to the present invention includes: a specification-conforming device identification unit (105) which identifies a device which conforms to a specification-related condition that should be satisfied by a device with an abstract name described in the application; a use situation-conforming device identification unit (106) which identifies a device which conforms to a use situation-related condition that should be satisfied by a device with an abstract name described in the application; and a device control unit (109) which controls, based on the application, the device identified by both the specification-conforming device identification unit (105) and the use situation-conforming device identification unit (106).