Patent ID: 8453202

Claim:
A computer program product, comprising a non-transitory computer usable medium having a computer readable program code embodied therein, the computer readable program code adapted to be executed to implement a method, the method comprising: storing policy data for a plurality of network nodes in at least one database, wherein each of the plurality of network nodes contains policy data corresponding thereto for governing interaction with at least one of the network nodes utilizing an interoperability network, including: storing first policy data of a first one of the network nodes, the first one of the network nodes including a user and the first policy data particular to the user and used for authorization of the user, and storing second policy data of a second one of the network nodes, the second one of the network nodes including one of an application and a service and the second policy data particular to the one of the application and the service; receiving a message from the user for being transmitted in the interoperability network to the one of the application and the service; in response to the receipt of the message, identifying from the database the first policy data of the user and the second policy data of the one of the application and the service; merging the identified first policy data of the user and the identified second policy data of the one of the application and the service to produce a combined policy that is honored by both of the user and the one of the application and the service, wherein the identified first policy data is merged with the identified second policy data in response to the receipt of the message to be transmitted in the interoperability network; evaluating the combined policy with respect to the received message; determining whether the message is associated with a policy violation, based on the evaluation of the combined policy; rejecting the message when the determination is that the message is associated with the policy violation; and transmitting the message when the determination is that the message is not associated with the policy violation.