Patent ID: 8625418

Claim:
A method for transmitting service and/or device discovery messages by a first node to other nodes in a wireless communication network that provides routing, packet forwarding, and service and/or device discovery functionality in a MAC-sublayer of a DLC-layer not supporting multicast routing, by using a communication protocol of a protocol layer organized on top of a TCP/IP-based networking layer from a protocol stack hierarchy according to the ISO/OSI reference model, wherein the communication protocol is based on the Universal Plug and Play (UPnP) standard, the method comprising: preventing the first node from broadcast routing and packet forwarding of data packets carrying service and/or device discovery messages as payloads within the wireless communication network by intercepting the first node from sending UPnP multicast messages to be sent from a first UPnP-enabled wireless node to other UPnP-enabled wireless nodes found by a service and/or device search procedure in a network protocol stack below an IP layer of said first UPnP-enabled wireless node's host operating system; mapping the UPnP multicast messages by an optimizer module of the first node to DLC/MAC unicast messages, said DLC/MAC unicast messages carrying an IP payload which, in turn, contains a UPnP service and/or device discovery message as a payload; sending the DLC/MAC unicast messages to said other UPnP-enabled wireless nodes within said wireless communication network to which the DLC/MAC unicast messages are destined; buffering the UPnP multicast messages until at least one other UPnP-enabled wireless node has been found by the service and/or device search procedure in the network protocol stack below the IP layer of the first UPnP-enabled wireless node's host operating system; and deleting buffered UPnP multicast messages when a confirmation message indicating that the at least one other UPnP-enabled wireless node matching the request has been found.