Apparatus and method for distributing rule ownership among devices in a system

An apparatus, comprising:

• a first communication device that operates as a server node in a group of communication devices, wherein the communication device comprises:
• a processing unit that is configured to:
• determine that an entity is associated with one of the first communication device and a second communication device in the group of communication devices;
• create a token and associate the token with the entity;
• identify, an resource type to which the entity belongs;
• assign ownership, by the communication device, for the token to one of the first communication device and the second communication device based on one of the first communication device and the second communication device being associated with the entity and further based on one or more of:
• at least one incident allocation criterion;
• at least one entity allocation criterion;
• at least one node allocation criterion;
• and
• wherein one of the first communication device and the second communication device is configured to execute, based on the ownership of the token, at least one predefined entity rule associated with the resource type.

A method, comprising:

• determining, by a first communication device in a group of communication devices, that the first communication device is a server node for the group of communication devices;
• determining, by the server node, that a new event has occurred;
• determining, by the server node, that a current incident exists at least one of near a geographical boundary of the new event and within a time window of the new event;
• responsive to determining that the current incident exists at least one of near the geographical boundary of the new event and within the time window of the new event, associating, by the server node, the new event with the current incident;
• responsive to determining that no current incident exists at least one of near the geographical boundary of the new event and within the time window of the new event, the server node is configured to:
• create a virtual incident and assign the geographical boundary and the time window of the new event to the virtual incident;
• associate a token with the virtual incident;
• identify a resource type to which the virtual incident belongs;
• and
• assign ownership for the token to one communication device based on at least one incident allocation criterion;
• wherein each communication device in the group of communication devices is configured to execute at least one predefined entity rule associated with the resource type based on ownership of an associated token.