Patent ID: 8065405

Claim:
A computing system with a processor and memory for assigning presence agent functionality to a client computing device, the client computing device operating a presence user agent for generating presence information pertaining to a user, comprising: computer readable instructions to determine if a server computing device has presence agent functionality; computer readable instructions to send presence information pertaining to the user to the server computing device when it is determined that the server computing device does have presence agent functionality; and computer readable instructions to register the client computing device with a registrar as a presence agent on behalf of the user when it is determined that the server computing device does not have presence agent functionality, wherein the client computing device receives subscription messages from watchers to subscribe to presence information of the user and transmits presence information to the watchers so that the client computing device functions as the presence agent for the user, rather than the server computing device wherein the computer readable instructions are stored in the memory for execution by the processor.