Patent ID: 7849203

Claim:
A method for peers of a peer-to-peer network to access resources connected to particular peers of the peer-to-peer network, comprising: establishing communication between a first peer and a second peer in the peer-to-peer network; defining parameters for accessing a resource of the first peer, the resource being a physical resource, the first peer managing and publishing resources including setting up constraints for use of the resource by other peers in the peer-to-peer network, the resource constraints varying based on the resource, one or more constraints imposed at the resource, and resource requirements of the other peers, the resource constraints varying from peer to peer, the first peer providing a proxy for managing access to the resource, and the first peer configured to arbitrate accesses to the resource to define an order for accessing the resource among a plurality of peers desiring access to the resource; and receiving a request from a second peer to access the resource of the first peer; if the first peer arbitrates access to the resource, enabling access to the resource in the order of accessing assigned to the second peer, such order determined among any of the plurality of peers also desiring access to the resource, the access to the resource being enabled through the proxy, the proxy defining a proxy interface to enable the second peer to interact with the resource, the proxy interface establishing the resource as a local resource to the second peer, wherein the use of the resource includes providing command and control to manage operation of the resource to the second peer through the proxy interface, the resources are hardware devices coupled to the particular peers, and providing the proxy for managing access to the resource further includes providing a bi-directional communication link.