Multimedia collaboration system

Patent 6237025 Issued on May 22, 2001. Estimated Expiration Date:

December 19, 2017. Estimated Expiration Date is calculated based on simple USPTO term provisions. It does not account for terminal disclaimers, term adjustments, failure to pay maintenance fees, or other factors which might affect the term of a patent.

Abstract Claims Description Full Text

Patent References

3723653

3873771

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More ...

Inventors

Application

No. 994848 filed on 12/19/1997

US Classes:

709/204COMPUTER CONFERENCING

Examiners

Primary: Dinh, Dung C.

Attorney, Agent or Firm

Sughrue, Mion, Zinn, Macpeak & Seas, PLLC

Foreign Patent References

35 07 152 DE. 08/13/1985
0 041 902 EP. 12/13/1981
0 190 060 EP. 08/13/1986
0 354 370 EP. 02/13/1990
0 403 118 EP. 12/13/1990
0 414 222 EP. 02/13/1991
0 436 345 EP. 07/13/1991
0 453 128 EP. 10/13/1991
0 497 022 EP. 08/13/1992
0 516 371 EP. 12/13/1992
0 523 618 EP. 01/13/1993
0 523 626 EP. 01/13/1993
0 535 601 EP. 04/13/1993
0 548 597 EP. 06/13/1993
0 561 381 EP. 09/13/1993
0 604 053 EP. 06/13/1994
WO 92/21211 WO. 11/13/1992
WO 94/24803 WO. 10/13/1994

International Classes

G06F 013/00
G06F 015/16

Abstract

A multimedia collaboration system that integrates separate real-time and asynchronous networks--the former for real-time audio and video, and the latter for control signals and textual, graphical and other data--in a manner that is interoperable across different computer and network operating system platforms and which closely approximates the experience of face-to-face collaboration, while liberating the participants from the limitations of time and distance. These capabilities are achieved by exploiting a variety of hardware, software and networking technologies in a manner that preserves the quality and integrity of audio/video/data and other multimedia information, even after wide area transmission, and at a significantly reduced networking cost as compared to what would be required by presently known approaches. The system architecture is readily scalable to the largest enterprise network environments. It accommodates differing levels of collaborative capabilities available to individual users and permits high-quality audio and video capabilities to be readily superimposed onto existing personal computers and workstations and their interconnecting LANs and WANs. In a particular preferred embodiment, a plurality of geographically dispersed multimedia LANs are interconnected by a WAN. The demands made on the WAN are significantly reduced by employing multi-hopping techniques, including dynamically avoiding the unnecessary decompression of data at intermediate hops, and exploiting video mosaicing, cut-and-paste and audio mixing technologies so that significantly fewer wide area transmission paths are required while maintaining the high quality of the transmitted audio/video.

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