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.

Date of Patent:
Jul. 23, 2002

Filed:

Dec. 28, 1998
Applicant:
Inventors:

Karen I. Trovato, Putnam Valley, NY (US);

Paul Rankin, Horley, GB;

Carolyn Ramsey, Pleasantville, NY (US);

Assignee:
Attorney:
Primary Examiner:
Int. Cl.
CPC ...
G06F 1/516 ;
U.S. Cl.
CPC ...
G06F 1/516 ;
Abstract

When a person requests access to a chat session, the time of the request is used to determine which chat room the person is placed. Other parameters are used to determine the surrounding factors, or context, within which the person initiated the request, such as the particular television program that the person was watching at the time of the request. By forming chat rooms based on the time of entry and the context in which the request is made, the chat rooms are likely to contain people with a common topic to discuss, such as the television news story being broadcast at that time. These time-of-entry chat rooms can also be structured to be of limited duration, obviating the overhead burden of deleting topic-specific chat rooms when the topic ceases to be of interest.

Published as:
WO0039978A2; WO0039978A3; EP1064768A2; US6425012B1; JP2002534726A; US2002174234A1; US6766374B2;

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