The patent badge is an abbreviated version of the USPTO patent document. The patent badge does contain a link to the full patent document.
The patent badge is an abbreviated version of the USPTO patent document. The patent badge covers the following: Patent number, Date patent was issued, Date patent was filed, Title of the patent, Applicant, Inventor, Assignee, Attorney firm, Primary examiner, Assistant examiner, CPCs, and Abstract. The patent badge does contain a link to the full patent document (in Adobe Acrobat format, aka pdf). To download or print any patent click here.
Patent No.:
Date of Patent:
Jul. 10, 2001
Filed:
Oct. 30, 1998
Joseph Alexander Dara-Abrams, Los Altos, CA (US);
Simon J. Gibbs, San Jose, CA (US);
Arunachalam Balaraman, Cupertino, CA (US);
Neil David Matthews, Tadley, GB;
Jon Fairhurst, Camas, WA (US);
Other;
Abstract
A method and system for communicating state information for a target consumer electronic device in a home network to multiple controller devices, where the controller devices are each implementing a controller software element that conforms to a different protocol than the other. The target consumer electronic device is represented within the home network by a target software element. A first controller software element conforming to a data driven interaction (DDI) protocol accesses the target software element. A second controller software element conforming to a protocol different from the DDI protocol concurrently accesses the target software element. The first controller software element and the second controller software element cause a change in state of the consumer electronic device. The target software element notifies the first controller software element and the second controller software element of the state information for the target consumer electronic device. The target software element notifies the first controller software element according to the DDI protocol and notifies the second controller software element according to the protocol different from the DDI protocol. The first controller software element and the second controller software element use the state information to manage their respective user interfaces such that consistency is maintained between the user interfaces.