Patent ID: 7735085

Claim:
A method operating on a device for allocating a top visible resource on the device, the method comprising: storing a relinquish list for a privileged application on the device, wherein the privileged application is allowed to specify in the relinquish list an application identifier or a group identifier corresponding to an application to which the privileged application will relinquish control of the top visible resource; receiving a request requesting allocation of the top visible resource to a requesting application; determining that the top visible resource is allocated to an owning application; associating owner information with requester information to form an arbitration request, wherein the owner information comprises information about the owning application and the requester information comprises information about the requesting application; downloading a resource arbiter to the device; arbitrating the arbitration request at the resource arbiter to produce an arbitration decision that indicates that the top visible resource is to be allocated to the requesting application if the owner information indicates that the owning application corresponds to the privileged application, and an identifier that identifies the requesting application corresponds to the application identifier or the group identifier in the relinquish list, wherein the step of arbitrating comprises arbitrating the arbitration request to produce an arbitration decision based on any information selected from a set of information items comprising the owner information, the requester information, device status information, device operating mode information, user preference information, and third party preference information; and allocating the top visible resource based on the arbitration decision.