Patent ID: 8756686

Claim:
A communication protocol method for tracking and tracing a query item represented by a unique identifier in a unique network, using a discovery service, wherein the discovery service comprises a database for storing event notifications, wherein each event notification comprises an event server address for an event server that comprises the corresponding event, wherein the communication protocol method comprises the following steps: receiving event notifications from event servers, wherein each event notification is either an aggregation event notification or an object event notification, wherein each aggregation event notification comprises an event server address, a parent identifier, and a child identifier, wherein each object event notification comprises an event server address and an object identifier; storing the event notifications in the database; receiving an item query from a client, wherein the item query includes the unique identifier representing the query item; identifying from the stored event notifications a filtered set of event notifications relevant for the query item, wherein event notifications relevant for the query item consist of: each object event notification having the unique identifier of either the query item or a container containing the query item as an object identifier, and each aggregation event notification having the unique identifier of either the query item or a container containing the query item as a child identifier; determining, from the filtered set, relevant events and relevant event server addresses of relevant event servers, wherein each event server storing one or more relevant events is a relevant event server; submitting event queries for the relevant events to the relevant event servers in parallel; receiving the relevant events from the relevant event servers; aggregating the relevant events; and submitting the relevant events to the client in an aggregated form.