Unified Presence Server for Multi-Protocol Collaboration
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Solution Overview
Problem
Current communication systems over the Internet face challenges in managing device connection semantics, contact lists, media transience, robustness, user identification, collaboration activity logging, mixed media collaborations, security, and privacy, particularly in providing real-time and dynamic collaboration across multiple protocols.
Innovation Solution
A real-time communication and collaboration system that includes a service provider, multiple interconnected servers, user accounts with media profiles, and a software platform allowing users to visualize and participate in a network of connected users across various protocols, enabling centralized and abstracted collaboration management and media-agnostic user interfaces.
Engineering Contradictions & Design Principles
Engineering Contradiction Analysis
1Adaptability or versatility
If traditional communication systems (forums, IM, VoIP) are used, then communication functionality is provided, but device complexity and management difficulty increase due to multiple protocols and media types
Solution Approach 1:
The patent introduces a presence server as an intermediary component that mediates between multiple communication protocols and the user interface. The presence server maintains presence information for users across different protocols (email, IM, VoIP, etc.) and provides a unified interface for accessing this information, thereby reducing the complexity of managing multiple protocols directly in the communication client.
Solution Approach 2:
The system implements a universal presence information model that can represent presence data across multiple communication protocols and media types through a common structure. This universal model allows the same interface and logic to handle diverse communication methods (email, instant messaging, voice over IP, etc.), reducing the need for protocol-specific handling and simplifying system management.
2Adaptability or versatility
If real-time collaboration across multiple protocols is enabled, then communication versatility improves, but information loss and inconsistency increase due to media transience
Solution Approach 1:
The system performs preliminary actions by continuously monitoring and updating presence information in advance before communication attempts. The presence server proactively maintains current presence data for users across multiple protocols, so when a communication request is initiated, accurate and up-to-date presence information is already available, preventing information loss and inconsistency.
Solution Approach 2:
The system implements feedback mechanisms where presence information is continuously updated and propagated across the network. When a user's presence status changes in any protocol, this information is fed back to the presence server and subsequently updated in the universal presence model, ensuring consistency across all communication channels and preventing information loss.
3Ease of operation
If centralized collaboration management is implemented, then system control improves, but device complexity and deployment difficulty increase
Solution Approach 1:
The patent segments the collaboration management system into distinct functional components: presence servers that handle presence information, communication clients that provide user interfaces, and a universal presence information model that serves as a common data structure. This segmentation allows each component to be developed, deployed, and maintained independently, reducing overall deployment complexity while maintaining centralized control through the coordinated interaction of these modules.
Data Source
AI summary
A method and apparatus for real-time communication and collaboration including visual modelling and creation of virtual collaboration regions in which users come together and see the media other users have to decide how they will communicate via use of compatible communication devices or common or connected software platforms.