Persistent Messaging Group Session Management

Resolve Bottlenecks,
Find Innovative Solutions
Generate Solutions

Solution Overview

Problem

Instant messaging applications lack the ability to maintain persistent groups across multiple sessions, requiring users to manually reinitiate conversations and not allowing seamless communication between offline and online members.

Innovation Solution

Creating a persistent messaging group within an instant messaging application that allows users to generate requests for group creation, send invitations, and persist messages for later viewing, enabling online and offline members to communicate and receive messages upon logging in.

Engineering Contradictions & Design Principles

VSEngineering Contradiction Analysis

1Ease of operation

If users manually reinitiate conversations in each session, then the instant messaging application maintains simple session-based communication, but user convenience and communication continuity deteriorate

Engineering Contradiction:
Improveuser convenienceVSAvoidapplication complexity
Core Design Contradiction:
Ease of operationVSDevice complexity

Solution Approach 1:

The system performs preliminary actions by automatically maintaining group membership information and conversation history across sessions. When a user logs in, the system proactively restores their place in ongoing group conversations without requiring manual reinitiation, thus improving ease of operation while managing complexity through automated background processes.

Inventive Principle:
Principle #10Preliminary action

Solution Approach 2:

The instant messaging server acts as an intermediary that persists group membership data and message history. This intermediary component bridges multiple user sessions, maintaining continuity of group conversations across different login instances without requiring complex client-side synchronization logic.

Inventive Principle:
Principle #24Intermediary (Mediator)

2Duration of action of stationary object

If the application stores persistent group data across sessions, then communication continuity improves, but data storage requirements and system complexity increase

Engineering Contradiction:
Improvesession persistenceVSAvoiddata storage
Core Design Contradiction:
Duration of action of stationary objectVSQuantity of substance

Solution Approach 1:

The instant messaging server performs multiple functions: it routes messages, manages user connections, and simultaneously persists group membership data and conversation history. This multi-functionality allows the system to maintain persistent groups without requiring separate dedicated storage infrastructure, thus extending session duration while controlling data storage requirements.

Inventive Principle:
Principle #6Universality (Multi-functionality)

Solution Approach 2:

The system changes the state parameter of group data from transient (session-based) to persistent (跨会话). By modifying this parameter, the system enables groups to survive across user logins and logouts, achieving communication continuity while managing storage through efficient data representation and cleanup of obsolete information.

Inventive Principle:
Principle #35Parameter changes

3Productivity

If manual reconnection is required for each session, then the application maintains simple session management, but communication efficiency and collaboration effectiveness deteriorate

Engineering Contradiction:
Improvecommunication efficiencyVSAvoidreconnection time
Core Design Contradiction:
ProductivityVSLoss of time

Solution Approach 1:

The system ensures continuity of useful action by maintaining group conversation state across user sessions. When users log in, their place in the group conversation is automatically restored, allowing communication to continue without interruption or manual reconnection, thus improving productivity while eliminating reconnection time losses through persistent backend storage.

Inventive Principle:
Principle #20Continuity of useful action

Data Source

PatentEP2319009B1Persisting a group in an instant messaging application
Publication Date: 2019.10.16 MICROSOFT TECHNOLOGY LICENSING LLC
  • EP2319009B1 patent drawingFigure 1
  • EP2319009B1 patent drawingFigure 2
  • EP2319009B1 patent drawingFigure 3

AI summary

A system described herein includes a receiver component that receives a request to create a persistent messaging group for an instant messaging application, wherein the request includes an indication of one or more entities that are desired to be members of the persistent messaging group. The system further includes a group creator component that creates the persistent messaging group based at least in part upon the received group creation request, wherein the persistent messaging group is persisted over multiple instant messaging sessions.