Patent ID: 8903971

Claim:
A method executed in an appliance connected to a communications network, the appliance having at least one component and a controller to communicate information over the communications network about the at least one component, the method comprising: generating a message comprising a message structure including a first identifier and a second identifier, wherein the message structure is used in conjunction with a messaging protocol to provide comprehensive information about the appliance and the at least one component over the communications network; retrieving a value of the first identifier corresponding to at least one first byte, wherein the first identifier identifies the format of the second identifier and wherein the second identifier corresponds to at least one second byte, the value of which provides the comprehensive information about the at least one component; retrieving the value of the second identifier based on the format identified by the first identifier; and recognizing the comprehensive information related to the at least one component based on the format indicated by the first identifier and the value retrieved from the second identifier to manage the at least one component using the obtained comprehensive information.