Patent ID: 7171441

Claim:
An agent collaboration system for connecting agents to each other through a virtual communication channel, each agent on the virtual communication channel comprising: a policy storing part for storing a policy that is a collection of rules containing a rule representing a relationship between an attribute of an agent and a role assigned in accordance with the attribute, the policy being used to define a virtual communication channel; a role assignment part having the policy storing part, for providing a role in accordance with the attributes of the agent based on the policy, said role assignment part specifying appropriate contents of a role to be assigned to the agents, based on the policy and the attribute of the agents distributed on the network; a role-execution condition storing part for storing the role assigned by the role assignment part and conditions for executing contents of the role; and a processing execution part for executing corresponding contents of a role when execution conditions for the contents of the role are satisfied, wherein the agent communicates with other agents through the virtual communication channel defined based on the policy; and an authentication entity provided on the virtual communication channel adapted to authenticate access rights of each agent to the virtual communication channel and contents of a role held by the role-execution condition holding part of each agent, said authentication entity being divided into: a policy approving authority issuing a policy certification for certifying that a policy is an authentic one, based on an electronic signature provided to data describing the policy; an attribute authority issuing an attribute certification for certifying attributes of each agent; and a certification authority issuing a public key certification for certifying that an agent on the network has been authenticated, each agent including a trust engine for interpreting the policy certification and the attribute certification.