Multi-party audio chat system which allows individual user utterances to be staged separately to render received utterances in order
First Claim
1. Apparatus comprising:
- an interface that operates to couple the apparatus to one or more other apparatuses to facilitate a user of the apparatus to engage in a multi-party audio chat with user(s) of one or more other apparatuses;
audio mechanism coupled to the interface to facilitate said user of the apparatus to utter to the other user(s) of the multi-party chat, in a manner that allows the user'"'"'s utterances to be staged by the other apparatus(es), separate from other utterances received by the other apparatuses, prior to rendering the user'"'"'s utterances; and
control mechanism coupled to the interface to facilitate said user of the apparatus to denote an end-of-utterance condition to the other apparatus(es) to allow the other apparatus(es) to render received utterances in order.
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Accused Products
Abstract
A method of communicating among participants at participant stations 1-N, the participant stations 1-N connected to a data communications network. A number of audio packet queues 1-N are assigned to each participant station 1-N. A composite audio packet is sent over the data communications network to each of the stations. The composite audio packet is comprised of an audio packet and a sending station identification (ID), the sending station ID corresponding to the station at which the composite packet originates. When the talking is done, a composite end-of-utterance marker packet is sent over the data communications network to each station. The composite end-of-utterance marker packet is comprised of an end-of-utterance marker and the sending station ID. At a receiving station, the audio packet corresponding to the sending station at which the composite packet originates is placed in an audio packet queue allocated to that sending station. The receiving station detects the composite end-of-utterance marker packet, at which time the contents of the audio packet queue are moved to a ready-to-play queue. The audio packets are played back from the ready-to-play queue.
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Citations
20 Claims
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1. Apparatus comprising:
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an interface that operates to couple the apparatus to one or more other apparatuses to facilitate a user of the apparatus to engage in a multi-party audio chat with user(s) of one or more other apparatuses; audio mechanism coupled to the interface to facilitate said user of the apparatus to utter to the other user(s) of the multi-party chat, in a manner that allows the user'"'"'s utterances to be staged by the other apparatus(es), separate from other utterances received by the other apparatuses, prior to rendering the user'"'"'s utterances; and control mechanism coupled to the interface to facilitate said user of the apparatus to denote an end-of-utterance condition to the other apparatus(es) to allow the other apparatus(es) to render received utterances in order. - View Dependent Claims (2, 3, 4)
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5. An apparatus comprising:
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an interface that operates to couple the apparatus to one or more other apparatuses to facilitate a user of the apparatus to engage in a multi-party audio chat with user(s) of one or more other apparatuses; staging mechanism coupled to the interface to facilitate separate staging of received utterances from the other user(s) of the multi-party chat; and audio mechanism coupled to the staging mechanism that renders in order completed ones the separately staged utterances. - View Dependent Claims (6, 7, 8, 9, 10)
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11. A method comprising:
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(a) transmitting utterances of a participant of a multi-party chat to one or more other participants of the multi-party chat, the utterances being transmitted in a manner that allows the utterances to be staged by the other participant(s), separate from other utterances received by the other participant(s), prior to rendering the participant'"'"'s utterances; (b) transmitting an end-of-utterance indication to the other participant(s), when the participant stops uttering, to allow utterances received by the other participant(s) to be rendered in order. - View Dependent Claims (12, 13, 14, 15, 16)
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17. A method comprising:
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(a) receiving utterance audio packets from other participants of a multi-party chat, and separately queuing the received utterance audio packets in a plurality of queues, one queue per other participant; and (b) rendering the queued utterance audio packets in order. - View Dependent Claims (18, 19, 20)
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Specification