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:
Dec. 02, 2008
Filed:
Oct. 30, 2003
Mark Steven Berkeland, San Jose, CA (US);
Farhang Frank Mehr, Nashua, NH (US);
Richard Bruce Kennerly, Amherst, NH (US);
Brian Wesley Ashford, Dover, NH (US);
David Omar Bundy, Bedford, NH (US);
Mark Steven Berkeland, San Jose, CA (US);
Farhang Frank Mehr, Nashua, NH (US);
Richard Bruce Kennerly, Amherst, NH (US);
Brian Wesley Ashford, Dover, NH (US);
David Omar Bundy, Bedford, NH (US);
Radvision Ltd., Tel Aviv, IL;
Abstract
An embodiment of the invention is a multipoint conferencing system having the ability to dynamically assign an endpoint to a 'closest' one of multiple conference servers is disclosed. In one embodiment, when an endpoint first connects to the conferencing system, its Endpoint ID (e.g., IP address, E164 address) is determined. Based on the Endpoint ID, the conferencing system selects the most appropriate ones of the conference servers to act as the endpoint's 'local' conference server. That is, the endpoint will transmit and receive conference data from other endpoints via the selected conference server. If no other endpoints across the network happen to be viewing a particular endpoint's video stream, the stream is not provided to the network, thus conserving network bandwidth. An embodiment further creates appropriate linking between conference servers automatically, manages conference server topology and determines link type (e.g., Unicast vs. Multicast linking) automatically.