Patent ID: 6851115

Claim:
A computer-implemented method for communication and cooperative task completion among a plurality of distributed electronic agents, comprising the acts of: registering a description of each active client agent's functional capabilities as corresponding registered functional capabilities, using an expandable, platform-independent, inter-agent language, wherein the inter-agent language includes: a layer of conversational protocol defined by event types and parameter lists associated with one or more of the events, wherein the parameter lists further refine the one or more events; a content layer comprising one or more of goals, triggers and data elements associated with the events; receiving a request for service as a base goal in the inter-agent language, in the form of an arbitrarily complex goal expression; and dynamically interpreting the arbitrarily complex goal expression, said act of interpreting further comprising: generating one or more sub-goals expressed in the inter-agent language; constructing a goal satisfaction plan wherein the goal satisfaction plan includes: a suitable delegation of sub-goal requests to best complete the requested service request—by using reasoning that includes one or more of domain-independent coordination strategies, domain-specific reasoning, and application-specific reasoning comprising rules and learning algorithms; and dispatching each of the sub-goals to a selected client agent for performance, based on a match between the sub-goal being dispatched and the registered functional capabilities of the selected client agent.