Patent ID: 8205013

Claim:
A method of aggregating control point information in a first home network, the method comprising: at a first control point aggregator in the first home network, acquiring information regarding one or more control points located in a second home network, wherein the information was compiled by intercepting multicast discovery requests in the second home network at a second control point aggregator in the second home network, wherein the one or control points located in the second home network are not discoverable directly by control points in the first home network due to the presence of at least one firewall between the first home network and the second home network; storing the information in a data structure at the first control point aggregator; receiving, at the first control point aggregator, a multicast discovery request from a first control point in the first home network, the multicast discovery request intended to discover all available devices in the first home network; accessing the data structure to retrieve the information regarding the one or more control points located in the second home network; forwarding the discovery request to the one or more control points located in the second home network using the information from the data structure.