Patent ID: 8244754

Claim:
A method for locating a three-dimensional object across a universe of virtual worlds, said universe of virtual worlds comprising one or more virtual worlds each virtual world executing as an application program, and accessible via a computer network, said object being uniquely identified by an object identifier, and said object having a plurality of properties associated therewith and said object having one or more current locations in said universe of virtual worlds each location represented by a URI, said method comprising: providing a virtual world object locator interface means associated with a corresponding virtual world, for obtaining one or more object current locations based on an object identifier of said object; providing a publication storage device populated with a plurality of object properties for all objects in said universe of virtual worlds, said object properties including at least said object identifier; providing an adaptor corresponding to a virtual world; receiving user input for object search request; providing an object search result list comprising one or more said object identifiers from said publication storage device in response to user input wherein said object search result list membership is determined by said user input; accepting an object identifier from said object search result list in response to user selection of said object identifier; obtaining object current locations of said accepted object identifier; and providing an object current location result list comprising the current object locations of the accepted object identifier, wherein each object current location result list entry has at least a URI associated therewith, wherein populating said publication storage device with a plurality of object properties comprises: marking all virtual worlds in the universe of virtual worlds as unvisited; selecting an unvisited virtual world from the universe of virtual worlds; selecting an adaptor corresponding to said selected virtual world; obtaining said plurality of a plurality of object properties for all objects within said selected virtual world; storing said obtained plurality of a plurality of object properties in said publication storage device; marking said selected virtual world as visited; and repeating steps b-f until there are no unvisited virtual worlds.