Patent ID: 7577703

Claim:
A method for operating a store and forward (S&F) system for transmitting messages from a client to a recipient in a network, comprising: receiving, at an S&F proxy intermediate the client and the recipient, a data message from the client, the data message having a header; determining, at the S&F proxy, whether an acknowledgement (ACK) flag is set in the header of the data message, the ACK flag signaling the S&F proxy to send an ACK message acknowledging the S&F proxy's receipt of the data message from the client and informing the client that the data message may be purged from memory; if the ACK flag is set in the header: waiting, by the S&F proxy until completion or timeout of an S&F transaction before sending the ACK message, upon completion of the S&F transaction within a predetermined time, sending a result (RES) message from the S&F proxy to the client instead of the ACK message, the RES message disclosing a result of the S&F transaction; upon not completing the S&F transaction within the predetermined time, sending the ACK message from the S&F proxy to the client and storing the data message in a memory at the S&F proxy; and if a RES flag is set in the header of the data message; upon completion of the S&F transaction or timeout sending the RES message from the S&F proxy to the client.