Marking and searching capabilities in multimedia documents within multimedia collaboration networks

• US 20020124051A1
• Filed: 04/09/2002
• Published: 09/05/2002
• Est. Priority Date: 10/01/1993
• Status: Active Grant

• Current Assignee: Pragmatus AV LLC (Pragmatus, LLC)
• Original Assignee: Collaboration Properties Incorporated
• Inventors: Lantz, Keith A., Lauwers, J. Chris, Burns, Emmett R., Burnett, Gerald J., Ludwig, Lester F.
• Granted Patent: US 7,054,904 B2
• Time in Patent Office: Days
• US Class Current: 709/204
• CPC Class Codes: G06F 15/16 Combinations of two or more digital computers each having at least an arithmetic unit, a program unit and a register, e.g. for a simultaneous processing of several programs coordinating program control therefor G06F9/52; in regulating and control system G05B
• CPC Class Codes: G06Q 10/10 Office automation; Time management
• CPC Class Codes: H04L 12/1818 Conference organisation arrangements, e.g. handling schedules, setting up parameters needed by nodes to attend a conference, booking network resources, notifying involved parties
• CPC Class Codes: Y10S 707/99933 Query processing, i.e. searching
• CPC Class Codes: Y10S 707/99953 Recoverability

Abstract

A multimedia collaboration system that integrates separate real-time and asynchronous networks—the former for real-time audio and video, and the latter for control signals and textual, graphical and other data—in a manner that is interoperable across different computer and network operating system platforms and which closely approximates the experience of face-to-face collaboration, while liberating the participants from the limitations of time and distance. These capabilities are achieved by exploiting a variety of hardware, software and networking technologies in a manner that preserves the quality and integrity of audio/video/data and other multimedia information, even after wide area transmission, and at a significantly reduced networking cost as compared to what would be required by presently known approaches. The system architecture is readily scalable to the largest enterprise network environments. It accommodates differing levels of collaborative capabilities available to individual users and permits high-quality audio and video capabilities to be readily superimposed onto existing personal computers and workstations and their interconnecting LANs and WANs. In a particular preferred embodiment, a plurality of geographically dispersed multimedia LANs are interconnected by a WAN. The demands made on the WAN are significantly reduced by employing multi-hopping techniques, including dynamically avoiding the unnecessary decompression of data at intermediate hops, and exploiting video mosaicing, cut-and-paste and audio mixing technologies so that significantly fewer wide area transmission paths are required while maintaining the high quality of the transmitted audio/video.

Claims

1. A computer-implemented process for computer conferencing, comprising the steps of:

(a) displaying, to a user of a caller, a directory of possible callees for a computer conference call, wherein;

the user selects a callee from the directory of possible callees; and

the caller and the selected callee are nodes of a computer network; and

(b) initiating the computer conference call from the caller to the selected callee, wherein;

the directory of possible callees comprises a first subdirectory of possible callees and a second subdirectory of possible callees different from the first subdirectory; and

the directory is an alphabetized combination of the first and second subdirectories.

2. The process of claim 1, wherein step (a) comprises the step of presenting the user with an option of selecting a single subdirectory only and a combination of two or more subdirectories.

3. The process of claim 1, wherein the first subdirectory is a personal list for the caller, which the user can access and edit.

4. The process of claim 1, the second subdirectory is a network list maintained by a network administrator, which the user can only access.

5. The process of claim 1, wherein:

the first subdirectory is a personal list for the caller, which the user can access and edit; and

the secondary subdirectory is a network list maintained by a network administrator, which the user can only access.

6. The process of claim 5, wherein the possible callees from the personal list are distinguishable in the display from the possible callees from the network list.

7. A storage medium encoded with machine-readable program code for computer conferencing, comprising:

(a) means for causing a machine to display, to a user of a caller, a directory of possible callees for a computer conference call, wherein;

the user'"'"'selects a callee from the directory of possible callees; and

the caller and the selected callee are nodes of a computer network; and

(b) means for causing the machine to initiate the computer conference call from the caller to the selected callee, wherein;

the directory of possible callees comprises to a first subdirectory of possible callees and a second subdirectory of possible callees different from the first subdirectory; and

the directory is an alphabetized combination of the first and second directories.

8. The storage medium of claim 7, wherein means (a) cause the machine to present the user with an option of selecting a single subdirectory only and a combination of two or more subdirectories.

9. The storage medium of claim 7, wherein the first subdirectory is a personal list for the caller, which the user can access and edit.

10. The storage medium of claim 7, the second subdirectory is a network list maintained by a network administrator, which the user can only access.

11. The storage medium of claim 7, wherein:

the first subdirectory is a personal list for the caller, which the user can access and edit; and

the second subdirectory is a network list maintained by a network administrator, which the user can only access.

12. The storage medium of claim 11, wherein the possible callees from the personal list are distinguishable in the display from the possible callees from the network list.

14. The process of claim 13, wherein the first subdirectory is a personal list for the caller, which the user can access and edit.

15. The process of claim 13, the second subdirectory is a network list maintained by a network administrator, which the user can only access.

16. The process of claim 17, wherein:

the first subdirectory is a personal list for the caller, which the user can access and edit; and

the second subdirectory is a network list maintained by a network administrator, which the user can only access.

17. The process of claim 16, wherein the possible callees from the personal list are distinguishable in the display from the possible callees from the network list.

19. The process of claim 18, wherein the first subdirectory is a personal list for the caller, which the user can access and edit.

20. The process of claim 19, wherein the possible callees from the personal list are distinguishable the display from the possible callees from the network list.

13. A computer-implemented process for computer conferencing, comprising the steps of:

(a) displaying, to a user of a caller, a directory of possible callees for a computer conference call, wherein;

the user selects a callee from the directory of possible callees; and

the caller and the selected callee are nodes of a computer network; and

(b) initiating the computer conference call from the caller to the selected callee, wherein;

the directory of possible callees comprises a first subdirectory of possible callees and a second subdirectory of possible callees different from the first subdirectory; and

step (a) comprises the step of presenting the user with an option of selecting a single subdirectory only and a combination of two or more subdirectories.

18. A computer-implemented process for computer conferencing, comprising the steps of:

(a) displaying, to a user of a caller, a directory of possible callees for a computer conference call, wherein;

the user selects a callee from the directory of possible callees; and

the caller and the selected callee are nodes of a computer network; and

(b) initiating the computer conference call from the caller to the selected callee, wherein;

the directory of possible callees comprises a first subdirectory of possible callees and a second subdirectory of possible callees different from the first subdirectory; and

the second subdirectory is a network list maintained by a network administrator, which the user can only access.