International Business Machines Corporation

Andrew M Ortwein

William M Quinn

Kevin Solie

Mark Scott Kressin

James S Johnston

Raymond Hornback, Jr

Michael William Quinn

Anthony Eugene Payne

Matthew A Levy

Christopher Hyland

Malissa Sullivan

Malissa Galloway Sullivan

The present invention is a method, system and apparatus for flexible image sharing. In a system for flexibly distributing imagery in an image sharing session, an image cache can be disposed between an application sharing host and a plurality of application sharing viewers. Additionally, a multipoint communications server can be disposed between the image cache and the application sharing viewers and can be communicatively linked to the application sharing host. Importantly, a pull-based subscription model can be implemented in an image cache server hosting the image cache. In particular, the model can have a configuration for registering respective ones of the application sharing viewers to receive notifications of available updated imagery.

Pull-configured distribution of imagery

An initial browser window establishes itself as a 'master' window for an associated server. A master window 'cookie' data structure is created by the master window to share state among the windows for the server. Through the initially created master window cookie, all subsequently created browser windows detect that a master window is currently active, determine the master window's window name, and then establish themselves as slave windows through the master window. Slave windows call into the master window to request server updates/events, and provide the master window with their respective window names for future reference, e.g. when the master window distributes updates/events received from the server to the slave windows. The master window uses only a single HTTP GET command to fetch and dispatch updates/events associated with itself and all slave windows for the server.

Dispatching events to multiple browser windows/tabs using a single connection

The present invention is a method, system and apparatus for flexible image sharing. In a system for flexibly distributing imagery in an image sharing session, an image cache can be disposed between an image sharing host and a plurality of image sharing viewers. Additionally, a multipoint communications server can be disposed between the image cache and the image sharing viewers and can be communicatively linked to the image sharing host. Importantly, a pull-based subscription model can be implemented in an image cache server hosting the image cache. In particular, the model can have a configuration for registering respective ones of the image sharing viewers to receive notifications of available updated imagery. In a preferred aspect of the present invention, the image sharing host can be an application sharing host hosting a shared application among the image sharing viewers.

Described is a method for retracting an instant message from a receiver in an instant messaging session. A request is made to retract the instant message from the receiver. If the receiver is present in the session, the instant message is removed from the user interface of the receiver. Notification is sent to the requestor to indicate whether the instant message was successfully retracted and whether the instant message was saved by the receiver. Optionally, the method allows an entry made in an instant messaging log to be retracted when the corresponding instant message is retracted.

Method of retracting an instant message

The present invention is a method, system and apparatus for componentized application sharing. The system can include a multiplicity of different pluggable image processing modules. Each of the different pluggable image processing modules can conform to a single interface expected by the application sharing module. Additionally, a communicative coupling can be provided between the application sharing module and a selected one of the different image compression modules.

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Lexington, KY, United States of America

Andrew M Ortwein