Patent ID: 7222193

Claim:
A method of electronic payment for data transferred across a computer network containing at least one client, at least one server and at least one router which forwards data, the method comprising the steps of: sending an electronic data request from a client to a server via one or more routers; sending electronic data in the form of data packets from said server to said client via one or more routers in response to said electronic data request; whereby the operation of the server is governed by a server protocol which causes the data packet sent from the server to have associated with it a data field containing a value which represents an intrinsic value of the electronic data in the data packet; and whereby each of said one or more routers has a router protocol which causes each router to forward the data packet in accordance with a routing table and to update the value contained in the data field by increasing the value to reflect an aggregated overall worth of the electronic data in the data packet associated with the action of forwarding the data packet.