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:
Mar. 24, 2015
Filed:
Jul. 27, 2004
Yen-fu Chen, Austin, TX (US);
Rick A. Hamilton, Ii, Charlottesville, VA (US);
James W. Seaman, Falls Church, VA (US);
Timothy M. Waters, Hiram, GA (US);
Yen-Fu Chen, Austin, TX (US);
Rick A. Hamilton, II, Charlottesville, VA (US);
James W. Seaman, Falls Church, VA (US);
Timothy M. Waters, Hiram, GA (US);
International Business Machines Corporation, Armonk, NY (US);
Abstract
Connection state information for Instant Message (IM) users is collected and stored by an IM client. Connection state information for everyone in a sender's buddy list is replicated and stored by the sender's IM client. The IM clients are updated as updates are made on the IM server. This enables simplified direct connection between IM clients when the IM server is down. Client-to-client IM searches are performable, wherein a search is transparently initiated against entries in the user's buddy list, i.e., the user's client directly contacts each available buddy in the user's buddy list using the stored connection state information of the buddy(ies), and it then queries the connection state information of all of the entries in their buddy list(s). For times when a user is not actively on-line, a listener service can be enabled at boot time for the user's PC or laptop computer.