Patent ID: 6988272

Claim:
An object collaboration apparatus, comprising: a computer comprising: a plurality of object-oriented data structures comprising objects, each object comprising: a message receiving portion to monitor and obtain a requesting message transmitted over a network by another of the objects, a reaction table to store an action content which is a reaction to said requesting message, wherein a reaction relationship of requesting messages and respective actions defined in the reaction table drives the object collaboration apparatus, and an action executing portion to execute processing in accordance with the action content; a requesting message sending portion to send a requesting message in which the object initiates a task by requesting processing of the task from other objects; a bidding portion to automatically generate and return a bidding message responsive to a requesting message if an action corresponding to the task that is requested in the requesting message is present in the reaction table, where the bidding message is a bid for the object to process the requested task; a bid awarding portion to automatically determine, from among objects returning a bidding message, an object to which processing of the task is assigned, wherein: said bid awarding portion uses, as one bid determining parameter, a communication time that is necessary for communication between the task initiator object and the objects sending the bidding message, and preferentially awards a bid to an object that has a short communication time between objects; a bid awarding notifying portion to notify the selected object of a bid awarding determination; and a bidding system determining the selected object, of which task processing is requested, if there are a plurality of competing objects responding to the requested task when receiving a bid awarding notification.