Microsoft Technology Licensing, LLC

Stefan Solomon

Michael Ray Clark

Mu Han

Donald R Ryan

Rajeev Byrisetty

Thomas Pfenning

Andres Vega-Garcia

Mary Michelle Quinton

Don Ryan

Client-server conference and user seeking is disclosed. In one embodiment, a system includes at least one server of a first type, a server of a second type, and a client. Each of the at least one server of the first type maintains at least one conference. The server of the second type stores a server list of the servers of the first type. The client queries this latter server to obtain the server list, and then is able to query each server on the list to learn of the conferences maintained by these servers. User lists may also be maintained by either the first and/or second server types, for querying by the client.

Client-server conference and user seeking through a server storing a list comprising active conference servers and excluding nonactive conference servers

Computers, particularly personal computers, have become everyday communications devices, nearly as common as telephones and televisions. A big reason for this is the expansion of computer networks, such as the Internet, which allow sending and receiving information, including audio and video information, from one computer to one or more other computers. Communicating audio and video information between computers can be problematic because users have to wait for the information to be fully downloaded before viewing or hearing it and because different computers sometimes communicate using incompatible communications protocols, which prevents comprehension. Accordingly, the inventors devised new methods, software, and computer systems that support interactive data streaming (real-time exchange of multimedia data) and full-duplex communications, for example, network conferencing, using more than one communications protocol.

Multimedia communications software with network streaming and multi-format conferencing

Computer telephony application programming interface is disclosed. In one embodiment, a system includes at least one call control object and at least one media control object. The call control objects are to initiate and terminate a computer telephony call having a media stream. The media control objects are to end-point the media stream of the computer telephony call. In a further embodiment, there is also a media control manager to instantiate a media control object for each multimedia device of the system.

Computer telephony application programming interface

Growing community of inventors

Bellevue, WA, United States of America

Stefan Solomon