Collaborative communication platforms

• US 7,730,129 B2
• Filed: 10/20/2004
• Issued: 06/01/2010
• Est. Priority Date: 10/20/2004
• Status: Active Grant

• Current Assignee: BCS Software LLC (d/b/a Bluebonnet Consulting Services & Software)
• Original Assignee: Inbit Incorporated
• Inventors: Wang, Jinsheng, Wang, Lu
• Primary Examiner(s): Dollinger, Tonia L.
• Assistant Examiner(s): Shin, Kyung H
• Application Number:
  US10/970,309
• Publication Number:
  US 20060095514A1
• Time in Patent Office: 2,050 Days
• Field of Search: 709/204, 709/219, 719/329
• US Class Current: 709/204
• CPC Class Codes: G06F 16/10 File systems; File servers
• CPC Class Codes: G06Q 10/10 Office automation; Time management
• CPC Class Codes: G06Q 10/107 Computer-aided management of electronic mailing [e-mailing]
• CPC Class Codes: H04L 51/04 Real-time or near real-time messaging, e.g. instant messaging [IM]
• CPC Class Codes: H04L 61/2521 Translation architectures other than single NAT servers

Abstract

A collaborative communication system is disclosed. The collaborative communication system integrates a number of electronic communication tools to meet the collaborative communication needs for an enterprise, family members or friends. All communications are within the system. According to one aspect of the collaborative communication system, registered users in the system are provided public, group and private arenas or domains. Depending on the privacy, communications with others may be conducted in any one of these domains. According to another aspect of the collaborative communication system, communications with others can be conducted through electronic internal mail (herein “i-mail”), instant messaging and file sharing. In particular, the i-mail operates on identifiers pertaining to registered users, thus eliminating the possibility of the registered users receiving unwanted email from other users outside the system.

Claims

1. A system for providing a collaborative communication platform, the system comprising:

a server executing a server module stored in memory, configured to manage all types of communications in the collaborative communication platform including a message recording mechanism, the all types of communications including at least live chatting by instant messaging, and internal electronic mail (hereinafter “

i-mail”

) going through the server, the message recording mechanism activated to archive messages exchanged in the live chatting and in the i-mail, wherein the all types of communications happen only among users registered with the server; and

at least a first client machine and a second client machine, each of the client machines displaying a user interface, wherein the user interface displays a first section showing all of the users registered with the server, the all types of communications happen only among the users via the server, any data in the live chatting and the i-mail being transported by the server between the first client machine and the second client machine, wherein composition of an i-mail message requires no email addresses of a sender and a recipient of the i-mail message, the i-mail message is delivered to the recipient based on a Push-and-Push or Push-and-Pull process within the collaborative communication platform; and

wherein a first user of the first client machine sends an i-mail message to one of the registered users, the i-mail message is a formatted electronic message including a subject and a message body;

or

wherein a first user of the first client machine communicates with a second user of the second client machine by the live chatting, and wherein both of the first and second users are listed in a second section listing some of the users online.

2. The system of claim 1, wherein the first client machine and the second client machine are coupled to a network but not necessarily in an enterprise premise.

3. The system of claim 2, wherein each of the first user and the second user is identified by an identifier in the collaborative communication platform, the identifier is assigned by the server and can not be used as an email address for someone other than the registered users to send an email message to.

4. The system of claim 3, wherein each of the first user and the second user is allocated a private domain in the user interface, and wherein the private domain includes a file list allowing a file to be uploaded from one machine and accessed from another machine.

5. The system of claim 4, wherein the user interface further includes another file list in the private domain to show that a file has been delivered by the first user for private access by the second user, and wherein the file is never actually in the second client machine till the second user decides to download the file.

6. The system of claim 5, wherein the second user is alerted by a text message when the file is uploaded by the first user to the another file list.

7. The system of claim 6, wherein the file uploaded in the another file list has an expiration and will be no longer available to the second user when the expiration comes.

8. The system of claim 4, wherein the user interface further includes a chat room section in the private domain to host a number of chat rooms, if there is any.

9. The system of claim 3, wherein the first user is alerted by an alerting message when a message is received by the i-mail.

10. The system of claim 9, wherein the message is instantly delivered when the first user is online, or the message is delivered to an inbox of the first user when the first user is offline.

11. The system of claim 3, wherein the first user and the second user share a common interest, and registered in a group that is initiated by one of the first user, and the second user, and wherein the group can be joined by other users, if any, (collectively referred to “

third user”

), the third user is admitted to the group when permitted by either one of the first user and the second user.

12. The system of claim 11, wherein the group includes a file list accessible only by any of the first user, the second user and the third user.

13. The system of claim 12, wherein each of the first user, the second user and the third user is alerted by a text message when a file is uploaded by one of the three users to the file list.

14. The system of claim 13, wherein the file in the file list has an expiration and will be no longer available when the expiration comes.

15. The system of claim 13, wherein the file list being shown to other two of the three users indicates that the file has been delivered by one of the three users for access only by the two of the three users, and wherein the file is never actually in the client machines by the two of the three users till one of the two of the three users decides to download the file.

16. The system of claim 1, wherein the user interface includes a file list to indicate that a file has been uploaded or is accessible by anyone of the registered users in the first section, the file list is displayed on each of client machines respectively used by the registered users, the file is never actually delivered to the client machines until one of the registered users has decided to access the file by downloading the file.

17. The system of claim 16, wherein an alerting message is sent to each of the registered users when the file is uploaded by one of the registered users to the file list thereof.

18. The system of claim 16, wherein the user interface further includes a chat room section hosting a plurality of chat rooms, each is initiated by one of the registered users and can be participated by any of the other registered users.

19. The system of claim 1, wherein each of users registered with the collaborative communication platform is identified by a unique identifier that can not be used by other than the registered users to send email messages to, the unique identifier being used by any of the registered users to send i-mail messages within the collaborative communication platform.

20. The system of claim 19, wherein all email messages exchanged by the i-mail are guaranteed to be from or to one or more of the registered users.

21. The system of claim 1, wherein the server further includes a rule manager configurable to impose various sets of communication privileges for the registered users.

22. The system of claim 21, wherein some of the registered users are granted permissions to remotely capture a screen display of a client machine without alerting a user of the client machine.

23. The system of claim 1, wherein each of the registered users remotely captures a screen display of a client machine by each of the other registered users should the each of the other registered users permits, and wherein an image of the screen display is forwarded to the each of the registered users.

24. The system of claim 1, wherein the first section shows a plurality of photo images, each of the photo images associated with one of the users.

25. The system of claim 24, wherein, when one of the users is to be contacted, the photo images are browsed to identify the one of the users.

26. The system of claim 25, wherein, when one of the photo images is selected, the one of the photo images is displayed in a larger dimension than that of other of the photo images.

27. The system of claim 25, wherein each of the photo images is updatable by a user thereof.

28. A system for providing a collaborative communication platform, the system comprising:

a server executing a server module stored in memory, coupled to a network and configured to manage all types of communications in the collaborative communication platform that only supports registered users with the server, each of the registered users being identified by a unique identifier, wherein any of the all types of communications are conducted among the registered users based on the identifier of each of the registered users;

a plurality of client machines, respectively coupled to the server, each executing a client module to display a user interface, the user interface showing at least a public domain, a group domain, and a private domain, wherein the public domain is open to all registered users, the group domain is open to only those of the registered users invited, and the private domain is accessible exclusively by a registered user who has logged onto the server,

wherein each of the three domains maintains at least a chat room section hosting chat rooms, if any, and a file list to indicate that a file is available for access upon uploading the file by one of the registered users to the file list thereof, and

wherein each of the registered users communicates with each of the other registered users by internal email (hereinafter “

i-mail”

) and instant messaging, any data in the i-mail and the instant messaging is transported by the server, and wherein composition of an i-mail message requires no email addresses of a sender and a recipient of the i-mail message, the i-mail message is delivered to the recipient based on a Push-and-Push or Push-and-Pull process.

29. The system of claim 28, wherein the server further includes a retention mechanism recording and indexing respectively all messages exchanged through each of the chat rooms so that, if necessary, any of the recorded and indexed messages can be replayed.

30. The system of claim 28, wherein one of the privileges for the registered users pertains to permission-based screen capture, and, if granted, one of the registered users can remotely capture a display screen of another one of the registered users.

31. The system of claim 30, wherein an image of the captured display screen is delivered across the network to the one of the registered users.

32. The system of claim 31, wherein the image is compressed and/or encrypted.

33. The system of claim 28, wherein the file uploaded by the registered user never goes across the network to the file list of any of the other registered users upon uploading the file by the registered user to the file list thereof.

34. The system of claim 33, wherein the file is time-stamped by the server and becomes unavailable for downloading after a predefined time.

35. The system of claim 34, wherein a secured channel is established when the file is being downloaded to a file list.

36. The system of claim 28, wherein each of the registered users is identified by a unique identifier that can not be used by other than the registered users to send email messages to, the unique identifier being used by any of the registered users to send i-mail messages within the collaborative communication platform, wherein the i-mail message is a formatted electronic message including a subject and a message body.

37. The system of claim 36, wherein all email messages exchanged by the i-mail are guaranteed to be from or to one or more of the registered users.

38. The system of claim 36, wherein composition of the i-mail message requires no email addresses of a sender and a recipient of the i-mail message.

39. The system of claim 36, wherein the i-mail message is delivered to a recipient based on a Push and Push or Push and Pull process.

40. The system of claim 36, the message is instantly delivered when the first user is online, or the message is delivered to an inbox of the first user when the first user is offline.

41. The system of claim 28, wherein some of the registered users are granted permissions to remotely capture a screen display of a client machine without alerting a user of the client machine.

42. A method providing a collaborative communication platform, the method comprising:

displaying a user interface including a list of representations of users registered with the collaborative communication platform, a group domain and a private domain, each of the domains including at least a chat room section hosting chat rooms, and a file list to indicate what files are available for downloading;

communicating with each of the registered users by internal email (hereinafter “

i-mail”

) and instant messaging, each of the users being uniquely identified with an identifier that is not used by other than the registered users to send email messages from outside the collaborative communication platform to any of the registered users, wherein any data in the i-mail and the instant messaging is transported by server administrating the collaborative communication platform, and composition of an i-mail message requires no email addresses of a sender and a recipient of the i-mail message, the i-mail message is delivered to the recipient based on a Push-and-Push or Push-and-Pull process; and

sharing a file deposited on the server with one or more of the registered users, wherein the file is listed in the file list that is accessible by the one or more of the registered users, and upon uploading the file to a store interfaced with the file list, the one or more of the registered users receiving an alerting message.

43. The method of claim 42, wherein each of the representations is associated with a photo image uniquely representing one of the registered users.

44. The method of claim 43, wherein, when one of the registered users is to be contacted, the photo images are browsed to identify the one of the users.

45. The method of claim 44, wherein, when one of the photo images is selected, the one of the photo images is displayed in a larger dimension than that of other of the photo images.

46. The method of claim 44, wherein each of the photo images is updatable by a user thereof.

47. The method of claim 42, wherein the user interface further includes a public domain that also includes at least a chat room section hosting chat rooms, if any, and a file list to indicate what files are available for downloading.

48. The method of claim 47, wherein any files listed in the file list of the public domain can be downloaded by any of the registered users, and any chat rooms in the chat room section can be participated by any of the registered users.

49. The method of claim 42, wherein the identifier is not a traditional email address that includes email server information.

50. The method of claim 42, wherein the i-mail works only on a close loop formed by the registered users, any email messages can be only exchanged within the collaborative communication platform.

51. The method of claim 50, wherein all email messages exchanged by the i-mail are guaranteed to be from or to one or more of the registered users.

52. The method of claim 50, wherein composition of an i-mail message requires no email addresses of a sender and a recipient of the i-mail message, the i-mail message is a formatted electronic message including a subject and a message body.

53. The method of claim 50, wherein an i-mail message is delivered to a recipient based on a Push and Push or Push and Pull process.

54. The method of claim 42, wherein the file listed in the file list is made unavailable for download after a predefined expiration, wherein the predefined expiration is either determined by the collaborative communication platform or by a registered user that has provided the file to be listed in the file list.

55. The method of claim 42, wherein the file list in the private domain includes two listing areas, one for one of the other registered users to list one or more files to be shared with an owner of the private domain, and the other for the owner to transport files to be used elsewhere.

56. The method of claim 42, wherein the displaying of the user interface further including:

contacting from a client machine to the server;

delivering data from the server to the client machine when a user of the client machine is authorized and recognized as one of the registered users of the collaborative communication platform;

converting the data into the user interface that further shows a list of the registered users that the user can now communicate with by the i-mail, instant messaging between two or more of the registered users or in a chat room of one of a public domain, a workgroup domain or a private domain, or file sharing via a file list in one of the public domain, the workgroup domain or the private domain.