Patent ID: 7225229

Claim:
A method in a portable computer for providing information about a context that is modeled with multiple context attributes, comprising: receiving from each of multiple clients an indication of a desire to receive multiple values for at least one of the context attributes of the context, at least some of the indicated desires each lacking restrictions on which values of the at least one context attributes are of interest; receiving from each of multiple sources an indication of an ability to supply values for one of the context attributes of the context; and for each of the multiple sources, receiving multiple values for the one context attribute for which the source has indicated the ability to supply values; and after the receiving of each of the multiple values, determining whether any of the multiple clients currently have a desire to receive values for the one context attribute for which the source has indicated the ability to supply values; and when at least one of the multiple clients is determined to have the desire, sending the received value to each of the determined clients.