Patent ID: 7792968

Claim:
A method of maintaining a peer-to-peer relay network, comprising: sending a maintenance message from a peer computer system to each of one or more connected peer computer systems connected to said peer computer system in a peer-to-peer relay network; evaluating any responses received from said one or more connected peer computer systems; determining the connection between said peer computer system and a connected peer computer system is a failed connection when the response from that connected peer computer system is not acceptable; sending, in response to determining a failed connection, a close connection request message to the connected peer computer system; closing the connection between the peer computer system and a connected peer computer system when a confirmation is received from the connected peer computer system, and in response to closing the connection, sending a connection available message to other peers in the peer-to-peer relay network, wherein when the peer-to-peer network is connected to a server, sending the connection available message to the server, wherein each peer computer system is connected to a number of other peer computer systems that is less than or equal to a connection limit and each peer computer system stores a set of one or more relay rules for relaying data to the other peer computer systems connected to that peer computer system.