Combining SIP requests with SIP responses

• US 20060271686A1
• Filed: 05/27/2005
• Published: 11/30/2006
• Est. Priority Date: 05/27/2005
• Status: Active Grant

• Current Assignee: Microsoft Technology Licensing LLC (Microsoft Corporation)
• Original Assignee: Microsoft Corporation
• Inventors: Sekaran, Dhigha
• Granted Patent: US 8,060,640 B2
• Time in Patent Office: Days
• US Class Current: 709/227
• CPC Class Codes: H04L 51/04 Real-time or near real-time messaging, e.g. instant messaging [IM]
• CPC Class Codes: H04L 65/1104 Session initiation protocol [SIP]
• CPC Class Codes: H04L 67/14 Session management for real-time applications in data packet communications networks H04L65/1066
• CPC Class Codes: H04L 67/147 Signalling methods or messages providing extensions to protocols defined by standardisation
• CPC Class Codes: H04L 67/54 Presence management, e.g. monitoring or registration for receipt of user log-on information, or the connection status of the users

Abstract

A method and system for combining SIP requests with SIP responses is provided. When a server receives a request from a client, a message combining system of the server sends a response to the request that includes the content of a request that the server would normally send to the client in a separate request. The message combining system of the server composes a response as it would normally and adds the content of the subsequent request to the response. The server then sends the combined response and request to the client. When the client receives the response, it retrieves and processes the combined request.

Claims

1. A method in a computer system for reducing network traffic that uses the session initiation protocol (“

SIP”

), the method comprising;

receiving at a server a SIP request from a client indicating that the client supports combining requests from the server with responses to the client;

creating a SIP response to the SIP request;

adding a request from the server to the SIP response; and

sending the SIP response including the added request to the client.

2. The method of claim 1 wherein the server and client communicate using SIP.

3. The method of claim 1 wherein the server and client are part of an instant messaging service.

4. The method of claim 1 wherein the response to the client contains a sequence number that would be contained on the combined server request if it were sent separately.

5. The method of claim 1 wherein the client indicates that it supports combining requests by adding a special header to the request.

6. The method of claim 5 wherein the server adds the special header to the response to reflect it back to the client.

7. The method of claim 1 wherein the server is a presence server.

8. The method of claim 1 wherein the request from the server includes a presence document.

9. A method in a computer system for reducing network traffic that uses SIP, the method comprising:

sending a request from a client to a server;

waiting for a response from the server to the request;

when the response is received, determining from the response whether it includes a combined request; and

when a combined request is included, retrieving the combined request from the response.

10. The method of claim 9 wherein the server and client communicate using SIP.

11. The method of claim 10 wherein the request sent from the client is a SIP subscribe request.

12. The method of claim 10 wherein the combined server request is a SIP notify request.

13. The method of claim 9 wherein the server and client are part of an instant messaging service.

14. The method of claim 9 including if the response is not received after a certain delay, resending the request to the server.

15. A computer-readable medium containing instructions for controlling a server to perform a method comprising:

receiving at the server a SIP request from a client;

creating a SIP response to the SIP request;

adding to the SIP response a request that can be sent as a separate SIP request; and

sending to the client the SIP response including the added request.

16. The computer-readable medium of claim 15 wherein the response to the client contains a sequence number that would be contained on the combined server request if it were sent separately.

17. The computer-readable medium of claim 15 wherein the client indicates that it supports combining requests by adding a special header to the request.

18. The computer-readable medium of claim 17 wherein the server adds the special header to the response to reflect it back to the client.

19. The computer-readable medium of claim 15 wherein the server is a presence server.

20. The computer-readable medium of claim 15 wherein the request from the server includes a presence document.