Patent ID: 7260597

Claim:
A process of identifying and managing interactive support service applications associated with consumer electronic devices, the process for execution by a gateway device communicatively coupled with each of the electronic devices via a home network, the gateway device being operative to access the Internet and being communicatively coupled with a display unit, comprising: initiating a remote interactive diagnostic process at the gateway device, for automatically diagnosing problems with a selected one of the electronic devices, the remote interactive diagnostic process comprising: determining device identification information associated with the selected one of the electronic devices for which a support service application is required; providing said device identification information to a selected server computing system via the Internet; downloading an interactive support service application associated with said selected device from the selected server computing system; and executing said downloaded interactive support service application at the gateway device to provide a remote interactive support service process for said selected device, wherein said interactive support service application comprises a diagnostic application including instructions executable by said gateway device to determine a current functional state of said selected device and determine diagnostic information based on said current functional state of said selected device, said diagnostic information indicating a problem associated with said selected device.