A system for and method of implementing a backoff protocol and a computer network incorporating the system or the method. In one embodiment, the system includes: (1) a client subsystem that generates a request for access to a shared resource and (2) a server subsystem that receives the request, returns a LOCKED indicator upon an expectation that the shared resource is unavailable and otherwise returns a FREE indicator, the client subsystem responding to the LOCKED indicator by waiting before regenerating the request for the access.