Patent ID: 8402161

Claim:
A non-transitory computer-readable storage medium carrying one or more sequences of instructions for controlling communications between one or more network devices, which instructions, when executed by one or more processors, cause the one or more processors to carry out the steps of: transferring a communication through an upper protocol stack, wherein the upper protocol stack is operable by application software, the application software: defining a data transfer protocol including a medical object management protocol layer defining hierarchical classification fields; processing the communication according to the hierarchical classification fields to identify: a highest family classification field defining classes of physiological data including blood pressure, temperature, and pulse oximetry, a middle genus classification field defining one or more attributes of the highest family classification field, including requesting data, responding with data, commands, continuously report data, and request status information, and a lowest species classification field defining a particular data type including getting data and putting data associated with blood pressure, temperature, and oximetry, and interpreting the communication based on the processing of the hierarchical classification fields; and transferring the communication through an interchange layer between the upper protocol stack and a lower protocol stack, the communication transferred through the interchange layer establishing a connection between a first network device and a second network device, at least one of the first network device or the second network device being a medical device.