Patent ID: 8325718

Claim:
A method of transmitting data, comprising: determining how much data is desired to be transmitted from a data source by an application; applying a utility function provided by the application to data samples generated by the data source producing a microutility that travels with each data sample that specifies a distance of transmission and a frequency of updates for the data sample; using the utility function to determine a pattern of microutilities to be delivered from the data source to a predetermined region based upon the distances and frequencies of the data samples, wherein the pattern of microutilities is selected to increase a sum of utility minus a cost of bandwidth; and propagating the data samples and their accompanying microutility to the region according to the pattern of microutilities, wherein using the utility function to determine the pattern of microutilities further comprises using the utility function to increase utility of the patterns of data delivery, determining a marginal utility for data samples received at different frequencies at different locations; determining when the marginal utility exceeds a threshold; and determining the pattern of microutilities such that the frequency of delivery at different distances includes any instances where the marginal utility exceeds the threshold.