Patent ID: 7162462

Claim:
A method comprising: associating a time function to an event object and a rule object in a rule engine using a dynamic object, the event object representing one of an event and a fact, the rule object representing a rule associated with the event object; obtaining time-related information on the dynamic object using a timed fact object and the time function, the timed fact object corresponding to the event object; updating a time queue containing the timed fact object using the time-related information, the updated time queue updating status of a condition of the rule; and wherein associating the time function comprises: performing a timestamp on one of the event and rule objects to update at least one of a last stamp time and a previous stamp time of the associated dynamic object; computing a rate of change using at least one of the last and previous stamp times; and wherein computing the rate of change comprises: computing number of occurrences per time unit of the timestamp.