Patent ID: 8769033

Claim:
A method of utilizing an object-based protocol for communicating between a master device and a slave device, the method comprising: facilitating a communications link with said slave device, said slave device including, (1) one or more objects on said slave device that are respectively associated with a set of corresponding object sequence indicators, wherein the object sequence indicator is a value within a set of values that for any two values, a later value is at least as extreme as a preceding value; and (2) a current maximum-sequence-value indicator that indicates the largest object sequence indicator on said slave device; communicating a request initiated by a requesting application on the master device for information about objects on the slave device based on a former maximum-sequence-value indicator corresponding to the requesting application, which indicates when the slave device formerly communicated with the master device, wherein said former maximum-sequence-value indicator is provided by said master device in association with the request; receiving information that satisfies the request, wherein the received information is communicated to the master device from the slave device, wherein the received information is related to objects that satisfy said request initiated by the requesting application, wherein the received information is determined based on utilizing the former maximum-sequence-value indicator and the object sequence indicators, wherein utilizing the former maximum-sequence-value indicator and the object sequence indicators includes determining a first set of objects whose corresponding object sequence indicator exceeds said former maximum-sequence-value indicator, and further wherein the received information is communicated to the master device based on the request initiated by the requesting application on the master device, and further wherein the received information comprises one or more of: (1) references to said first set of objects communicated to said master device, and (2) said first set of objects communicated to said master device; and updating the former maximum-sequence-value indicator corresponding to the requesting application with the current maximum-sequence-value indicator, wherein updating the former maximum-sequence-value indicator comprises receiving from the slave device its current maximum-sequence-value indicator and storing it as said former maximum-sequence-value indicator for the requesting application.