Patent ID: 7921194

Claim:
A method for remote access to one or more Universal Plug and Play (UPnP) resources, comprising: employing a processor for, maintaining an access policy for discovery of a UPnP resource over a communication link via UPnP communication protocol, wherein the access policy comprises access control measures for enforcing device discovery and security; a remote requestor accessing the UPnP resource over the communication link by performing message forwarding at a UPnP layer in a network connecting the UPnP resource and the remote requestor via the communication link; and controlling discovery of a resource based on the access policy, in response to a remote discovery request over the communication link; wherein accessing the UPnP resource comprises: upon receiving the remote discovery request from the remote requester over the communication link, consulting the access policy and using the access policy to determine if the UPnP resource is discoverable, wherein the remote requester comprises a UPnP module; and if the resource is discoverable, then providing resource information to the remote requester over the communication link for access to the UPnP resource, the network is a local network, and controlling discovery is performed by a controller in the local network, and the UPnP resource is local to the network and the remote requester is external to the network, and the communication link comprises a connection network.