Using login-based addressing to communicate with listed users
First Claim
1. A method of real-time communication between a plurality of users each with respective communication devices having associated displays, the method comprising:
- providing each of the plurality of users with collaboration initiation software at their communication devices;
allowing at least first and second users to log in to their respective communication devices;
registering the communication devices of at least the first and second users with at least one communication network;
in response to the users logging in, enabling the system to maintain service records for at least the first and second users, the service records including user identification information and an associated location information identifying the user'"'"'s location no matter where that user is located;
causing display of a user identifier for at least the second user in a list of users;
allowing the first user to request communications with the second user by selecting the displayed second user'"'"'s identifier;
in response to the selection, retrieving necessary location information of the second user from at least one service record;
using the retrieved information to establish a connection between the first and second users, thereby enabling real-time communication, including at least audio, between the first and second users.
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Accused Products
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.
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Citations
44 Claims
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1. A method of real-time communication between a plurality of users each with respective communication devices having associated displays, the method comprising:
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providing each of the plurality of users with collaboration initiation software at their communication devices;
allowing at least first and second users to log in to their respective communication devices;
registering the communication devices of at least the first and second users with at least one communication network;
in response to the users logging in, enabling the system to maintain service records for at least the first and second users, the service records including user identification information and an associated location information identifying the user'"'"'s location no matter where that user is located;
causing display of a user identifier for at least the second user in a list of users;
allowing the first user to request communications with the second user by selecting the displayed second user'"'"'s identifier;
in response to the selection, retrieving necessary location information of the second user from at least one service record;
using the retrieved information to establish a connection between the first and second users, thereby enabling real-time communication, including at least audio, between the first and second users. - View Dependent Claims (2, 3, 4, 5, 6, 8, 9, 10, 11, 12, 13, 14, 15, 16, 17, 18, 19, 20, 21, 22)
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7. The method of claim 7, wherein information in at least one service record is usable to associate a user with ports associated with the communication device into which that user is logged in.
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23. A system for real-time, communication between a plurality of separated users, comprising:
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(a) at least one communication device for use by each of the plurality of users and having an associated display;
(b) communication initiation software associated with the communication devices;
(c) at least one communication network to which at least first and second users can connect by using the collaboration initiation software at their respective communication devices;
(d) at least one service record for each of the first and second logged in users, the at least one service record including user identification information and an associated location where each user is logged in no matter where that user is located and being maintained in response to the respective user logging in; and
(e) computer software for (i) causing display of a user identifier for at least the second user in a list of users and;
(ii) generating a signal in response to a first user selecting the displayed second user'"'"'s identifier; and
wherein the system is configured to cause the retrieving of necessary location information of the second user;
use the retrieval location information to cause the establishing of a connection between the first and second users; and
thereby enable real-time communication, including at least audio, between the first and second users. - View Dependent Claims (24, 25, 26, 27, 28, 29, 30, 31, 32, 33, 34, 35, 36, 37, 38, 39, 40, 41, 42, 43, 44)
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Specification