Patent ID: 7774495

Claim:
A peer computing system, comprising: a plurality of peer nodes configured to participate in a peer-to-peer environment on a network according to a peer-to-peer platform comprising one or more peer-to-peer platform protocols for enabling the peer nodes to discover peer-to-peer environment resources including each other, communicate with each other, and cooperate with each other to form peer groups in the peer-to-peer environment, wherein the one or more peer-to-peer platform protocols are each defined as one or more types of messages in a format supported by the peer-to-peer platform; one or more of the plurality of peer nodes each configured as a relay/proxy node configured to perform a plurality of distinct peer-to-peer environment functions in accordance with the one or more peer-to-peer platform protocols on behalf of wireless devices; and a plurality of wireless devices each configured to implement an instance of a wireless peer-to-peer infrastructure that enables the wireless devices to communicate with one or more of the relay/proxy nodes according to a wireless peer-to-peer infrastructure protocol to participate as peer nodes in the peer-to-peer environment, wherein the wireless peer-to-peer infrastructure protocol uses binary messages in communications between the wireless devices and the relay/proxy nodes instead of messages in the format supported by the peer-to-peer platform; wherein the wireless peer-to-peer infrastructure includes one or more software modules and provides an Application Programming Interface (API) to the software modules for directing a relay/proxy node, via the wireless peer-to-peer infrastructure protocol, to perform the peer-to-peer environment functions on behalf of an application on a wireless device.