Method and system for supporting the communication of presence information among computing devices of a network

A method for transferring the functionality of a presence agent from one computing device to another to convey presence information for a user having one or more computing devices capable of communicating over a network, the computing devices capable of being registered with a registrar to facilitate network telephony services, the method comprising:

• determining if at least one computing device is already registered as a presence agent with the registrar by the user;
• sending, to the computing device determined as being already registered, a message indicating that the already-registered computing device is no longer the presence agent for the user;
• and
• registering a different of the one or more computing devices with the registrar as a presence agent, so that the different computing device becomes the sole computing device registered as a presence agent for the user.

A method for assigning presence agent functionality to a client computing device, the client computing device operating a presence user agent for generating presence information pertaining to a user, the method comprising:

• determining if a server computing device has presence agent functionality;
• the client computing device executing, in response to the determining step software for sending presence information pertaining to the user to the server computing device;
• and
• in response to the determining step, the client computing device registering with a registrar as a presence agent on behalf of the user.

A system for transferring the functionality of a presence agent from one computing device to another to ensure the accurate conveyance of presence for a user having one or more computing devices, the computing devices capable of being registered with a registrar to facilitate network telephony services, the system comprising:

• means for determining if at least one computing device is already registered with the registrar by the user;
• means for sending a deregistration message to the at least one computing device determined as being already registered with the registrar;
• and
• means for registering a different of the one or more computing devices with the registrar, the different computing device being the sole computing device registered by the user.