Patent ID: 7085841

Claim:
An object based interface for an industrial control system comprising: a server program that receives communications from a client program that employs a standard object protocol, which includes discovery instructions, the client program communicates with the server program over a network; a set of software objects including at least two third-party objects having differing proprietary object protocols also differing from the standard object protocol; and at least two object providers that each communicate with the server program and one proprietary object to translate between standard object protocol and an associated one of the proprietary object protocols, the object providers expose proprietary objects that are associated with a URL and respond to the discovery instructions via identification of object features of software objects with which they are associated, wherein an interceptor monitors communications between the server program and the object providers and performs at least one of verifying license validity and recording a fee for use of an object; whereby objects from multiple vendors may be simply utilized by the client program.