Patent ID: 6975864

Claim:
A method of enabling seamless user mobility in a short-range wireless networking environment, comprising the steps of: providing a plurality of Handoff Management Points (HMPs), each of the HMPs equipped with a short-range wireless link for communication with one or more client devices and a link to a networking environment wherein one or more application programs residing on one or more application servers can be accessed, wherein each of the client devices is equipped with a short-range wireless communications capability for communicating in the short-range wireless networking environment; making a particular one of the client devices known to a first one of the HMPs when the particular client device comes into communication range of the first HMP; obtaining, by the first HMP, a network address for the particular client device, wherein the network address is usable by the particular client device for accessing one or more of the application programs; and handing the particular client device off from the first HMP to a second one of the HMPs, when the particular client device leaves the communication range of the first HMP and enters the communication range of the second HMP, such that any on-going session operating between the particular client device and one or more of the application programs is maintained, by continuing to use the same network address for the particular client device after the particular client device is handed off to the second HMP.