Patent ID: 7941660

Claim:
A method of communication between a resource-constrained device, solely capable of half-duplex communication, a host computer and remote network nodes over a network wherein the host computer and the remote network nodes communicate with the resource-constrained device using un-modified network clients and servers and wherein the resource-constrained device has a central processing unit, a random access memory, a non-volatile memory, a read-only memory, and an input and output component, the resource-constrained device connected to the host computer over a physical communications link connection, comprising: establishing a physical link connection between the resource-constrained device and the host computer via an interface device; executing on the resource-constrained device a communications module implementing networking protocols and one or more link layer communication protocols, operable to communicate with an interface device, and operable to communicate with remote network nodes; operating the resource-constrained device according to a communications module, wherein the communication module is driven by input events and by one or more secure network applications executing on the resource-constrained device wherein the network applications call upon the communication module of the resource-constrained device to communicate with the host computer and the remote network node; operating the interface device according to a first finite state machine permitting the interface device to forward messages between the resource constrained device and the network wherein the interface device is in one of the at least one states permitting the resource constrained device to initiate and send messages according to a peer-to-peer communication protocol, and delaying interaction with the resource-constrained device for a time period in response to the resource-constrained device indicating no intent to initiate and send messages; operating the resource constrained device according to a second finite state machine permitting the resource constrained device to transmit messages according to a peer-to-peer communication protocol to the host computer or a remote network node via the interface device; and operating the resource constrained device to set a polling-interval indicating to the interface device the interval between polling message transmissions from the interface device to the resource constrained device thereby reducing power consumption.