Patent ID: 7673020

Claim:
A method for facilitating communication between an initiator and a responder utilizing an extensible protocol, the method comprising: providing the responder with one or more objects corresponding to still images, audio, or video, an object information data set specific to one or more objects, and a plurality of data sets, the plurality of data sets including a set of device properties supported by the responder, a set of object properties supported by the responder, and device-specific operations supported by the responder, wherein the set of device properties comprise standard data codes that are common to all of a plurality of types of media devices using the extensible protocol and vendor-specific data codes that are specific to media devices of a vendor; and providing the initiator with a plurality of control modules for obtaining the object information data set, obtaining information on the set of device properties, the set of object properties, and the device-specific operations to determine capabilities of the responder, and for controlling the one or more objects associated with the responder by utilizing the obtained information and the extensible protocol; wherein the object information data set comprises a plurality of fields for describing characteristics of the one or more objects, including meta-data associated with the one or more objects, wherein the meta-data includes descriptions, modifications, format information, associations, or combinations thereof, wherein the extensible protocol includes a set of extensions to support a plurality of different transport layers, the extensions comprising support for the standard data codes and the vendor-specific data codes, including a set of extensions to Picture Transfer Protocol, wherein the extensions included in the extensible protocol provide support for each of the plurality of types of media devices, the plurality of types of media devices belonging to different categories; wherein the initiator is a personal computing device, wherein the extensible protocol defines transport layer agnostic transfer of still images, audio, and video, as well as meta-data associated with the still images, audio, and video, between the personal computing device and the plurality of types of media devices, and wherein the responder is one of the plurality of types of media devices.