Peer-to-peer instant messaging and chat system

• US 20060209727A1
• Filed: 02/24/2005
• Published: 09/21/2006
• Est. Priority Date: 02/24/2005
• Status: Active Grant

• Current Assignee: X Corp. (f/k/a Twitter, Inc.) (X Holdings Corp.)
• Original Assignee: International Business Machines Corporation
• Inventors: LaVoie, Jason D., Jennings, Raymond B. III
• Granted Patent: US 7,675,874 B2
• Time in Patent Office: Days
• US Class Current: 370/260
• CPC Class Codes: H04L 12/1822 Conducting the conference, e.g. admission, detection, selection or grouping of participants, correlating users to one or more conference sessions, prioritising transmission
• CPC Class Codes: H04L 63/1458 Denial of Service
• CPC Class Codes: H04L 67/104 Peer-to-peer [P2P] networks
• CPC Class Codes: H04L 67/1053 with pre-configuration of logical or physical connections with a determined number of other peers
• CPC Class Codes: H04L 67/1068 Discovery involving direct consultation or announcement among potential requesting and potential source peers
• CPC Class Codes: H04L 67/306 User profiles

Abstract

Disclosed is a method for controlling access to a chat room using a peer-to-peer (“P2P”) network. The method includes the steps of sending a search request to a first set of nodes in the P2P network, the first set of nodes neighboring a node requesting the search and including at least one node; forwarding the request to a second set of nodes neighboring the at least one node in the first set, the second set of nodes including at least one node; comparing the search request to a local profile topic list in each node in the first and second sets; receiving a zero or more responses from nodes in the first and second sets; and establishing a network connection between the node requesting the search and at least one of the nodes responding to the request to form a community.

Claims

1. A method for controlling access to a chat room using a peer-to-peer (“

P2P”

) network comprising the steps of;

sending a search request to a first set of nodes in the P2P network, said first set of nodes neighboring a node requesting the search and comprising at least one node;

forwarding the request to a second set of nodes neighboring the at least one node in the first set, said second set of nodes comprising at least one node;

comparing the search request to a local profile topic list in each node in the first and second sets;

receiving a zero or more responses from nodes in the first and second sets; and

establishing a network connection between the node requesting the search and at least one of the nodes responding to the request to form a community.

2. The method of claim 1, further comprising the step of sending messages among the nodes in the community.

3. The methods of claim 1 wherein at least one additional node sends a search request and joins said community.

4. The method of claim 1 wherein a requesting node presents an authentication token upon creating said network connection to responding nodes.

5. The method of claim 4 wherein the authentication token is at least part of responses received by the requesting node.

6. The method of claim 2 wherein a message sent by any node within the community is then forwarded to all nodes within the community.

7. The method of claim 1, wherein the network connections between the nodes are redistributed to balance the network traffic.

8. The method of claim 1, wherein the local profile topic list contains keywords for each node to match against the search request from the requesting node.

9. The method of claim 8, wherein a node determines if the search request is a sufficient match to one or more entries in the search profile.

10. The method of claim 9 wherein the process of determining whether a search request is a sufficient match is either a manual or automatic process.

11. The method of claim 9, wherein the responding node responds to the search request by sending a profile string that matched the search request and a network connection point, such as network address and port number.

12. The method of claim 1 wherein the responding node determines whether to accept a connection from a new node based on how many active nodes are currently within nodes existing in the community.

13. The method of claim 12 wherein a chat room includes a predetermined maximum number of users.

14. The method of claim 6, wherein all nodes in the community receive at least one copy of every message.

15. The method of claim 1 wherein a node leaves a community by disconnecting its network connection.

16. The method of claim 15 wherein all nodes within the community are notified when a new node joins or leaves the group.

17. The method of claim 14 wherein each message has a unique node identifier and a message number.