Patent ID: 8072982

Claim:
A gateway entity for connecting at least two application entities with a communication network, the application entities independently running the same application that conforms to rules of a predetermined protocol, wherein the rules prescribe at least one sequence of messages, the sequence comprising at least two sequence steps, and wherein sequence step information is derivable for each message and is different from one sequence step to another, but is the same for two messages that are generated at the same sequence step in the independently running application entities, the gateway entity including a message handler comprising: a receiver for receiving outbound messages from the application entities; means for determining sequence step information in an outbound message; a memory for holding previously stored sequence step information; and control means for controlling the receiver, the determining means, and the memory, the control means including: means for comparing the determined sequence step information with the previously stored sequence step information in the memory; means for writing the determined sequence step information into the memory if the result of comparison indicates that the determined sequence step information is not present in the memory in the form of the previously stored sequence step information; means for processing the outbound message as a first message of a given sequence step if the results of comparison indicates that the determined sequence step information is not present in the memory in the form of the previously stored sequence step information; and means for processing the outbound message as a further message of the given sequence step if the result of comparison indicates that the determined sequence step information is present in the memory in the form of the previously stored sequence step information.