The patent badge is an abbreviated version of the USPTO patent document. The patent badge does contain a link to the full patent document.
The patent badge is an abbreviated version of the USPTO patent document. The patent badge covers the following: Patent number, Date patent was issued, Date patent was filed, Title of the patent, Applicant, Inventor, Assignee, Attorney firm, Primary examiner, Assistant examiner, CPCs, and Abstract. The patent badge does contain a link to the full patent document (in Adobe Acrobat format, aka pdf). To download or print any patent click here.
Patent No.:
Date of Patent:
Feb. 08, 2000
Filed:
Jun. 17, 1997
Daniel Joseph Samuel, Sunnyvale, CA (US);
Michael Andrew Wolf, Mountain View, CA (US);
Donald Peregrine Clark, Sunnyvale, CA (US);
MPATH Interactive, Inc., Mountain View, CA (US);
Abstract
A method and apparatus related to grouping (or matching) network users and computers associated with multi-user applications is disclosed. Each user is associated with a client computer that is connected to a network. A match maker application resides on one or more server computer(s). The match maker application controls the process of collecting Clients into matched sets, called client groups, based upon a wide range of attributes of the users, their client computers, the server computers, software application titles, application instances and/or data communication links of the network, for example. Each time the match maker application creates a client group, it creates a group data set that represents the client group. Network match making information is presented to users in an understandable manner using icons, other graphical images or collections of icons and/or images, for example, displayed on a display screen. For example, a non-textual element of a graphical image can be varied to communicate group information about a client group to a user. A variety of non-textual elements can be used to communicate a variety of group information to a user.