System for sending differences between joining meeting information and public meeting information between participants in computer conference upon comparing annotations of joining and public meeting information
First Claim
1. In a computer conferencing system having a plurality of participants coupled by a communication medium, each participant of said plurality of participants having a meeting manager, said meeting manager comprising:
- means for collecting public meeting information generated by any of said plurality of participants, said public meeting information including zero or more pages of annotations;
means for receiving joining meeting information from a joining participant;
means for comparing an annotation in said public meeting information with a second annotation in said joining meeting information from said joining participant and generating a set of differences; and
means for selectively sending said set of differences to at least one participant in said plurality of participants.
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Abstract
The present invention is an apparatus and method for joining participants in a conferencing system. In a computer conferencing system having a plurality of participants coupled by a communication medium, each participant of the plurality of participants having a meeting manager, a process and apparatus is disclosed for joining participants in the conferencing system. This process comprises the steps of: 1) collecting public meeting information generated by any of the plurality of participants, the public meeting information includes zero or more pages of annotations; 2) receiving a connection indication from a joining participant; 3) receiving joining meeting information from the joining participant; 4) comparing the public meeting information with the joining meeting information and generating a set of differences; and 5) selectively sending the set of differences to the joining participant or the plurality of participants or both the joining participant and the plurality of participants. The process of the present invention further includes the step of collecting private meeting information from a local participant in which the meeting manager is resident. The private meeting information is different from the public meeting information and the private meeting information is not accessible to participants of the plurality of conference participants other than the local participant.
In the present invention, one and only one participant of the plurality of participants is assigned an arbitrator status, the arbitrator status being dynamically modifiable. The one participant is denoted as the arbitrator participant.
241 Citations
22 Claims
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1. In a computer conferencing system having a plurality of participants coupled by a communication medium, each participant of said plurality of participants having a meeting manager, said meeting manager comprising:
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means for collecting public meeting information generated by any of said plurality of participants, said public meeting information including zero or more pages of annotations; means for receiving joining meeting information from a joining participant; means for comparing an annotation in said public meeting information with a second annotation in said joining meeting information from said joining participant and generating a set of differences; and means for selectively sending said set of differences to at least one participant in said plurality of participants. - View Dependent Claims (2, 3, 4, 5, 6, 7, 8, 9, 10)
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11. In a computer conferencing system having a plurality of participants coupled by a communication medium, each participant of said plurality of participants having a meeting manager, a process for joining participants comprising the steps of:
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collecting public meeting information generated by any of said plurality of participants, said public meeting information including zero or more pages of annotations; receiving joining meeting information from a joining participant; comparing an annotation in said public meeting information with a second annotation in said joining meeting information from said joining participant and generating a set of differences; and selectively sending said set of differences to at least one participant in said plurality of participants. - View Dependent Claims (12, 13, 14, 15, 16, 17, 18, 19, 20, 21)
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22. A computer conferencing system having a plurality of participants coupled by a communication medium, each participant of said plurality of participants having a meeting manager, said meeting manager comprising:
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an arbitrator participant collecting public meeting information generated by any of said plurality of participants, said public meeting information includes zero or more pages of annotations; a communications medium used to transfer a connection indication and joining meeting information from a joining participant; logic circuitry used to compare an annotation in said public meeting information with a second annotation in said joining meeting information and generating a set of differences; and processing electronics used to selectively send said set of differences to one of said joining participant, said plurality of participants, and a grouping of all of said joining participant and said plurality of participants.
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Specification