Method and apparatus for dynamically defining data communication utilities
US6226678A · kind A · utility
Assignee
Inventors
Key dates
| Filing date | Sep 25, 1996 |
| Grant date | May 1, 2001 |
| Priority date | — |
| Expiry date | Sep 25, 2016 |
Classification
- Technology area (CPC H)Electricity
- CPC primaryH04L67/14
- WIPO fieldDigital communication
- WIPO sectorElectrical engineering
Abstract
A communication protocol for establishing real-time, point-to-point communications between client processes over a computer network includes a directory server apparatus for providing current dynamically assigned Internet Protocol addresses of client process currently connected to the computer network. The client processes can be Internet telephony applications each capable of performing a plurality of predefined functions. In accordance with one aspect of the invention, each client process is required to connect to the server apparatus upon initialization and receives a feature definition identifying which of the plurality of functions the client process is authorized to perform. In another aspect of the invention a callee client process verifies the identity of a caller client process with the directory server and is provided with the feature definition of the caller process to prevent the caller client process from communicating with the callee client process in unauthorized manners. In accordance with yet another aspect of the invention, the feature definition is definable by either the requesting client process or the server.
Source: USPTO / EPO open patent data. Objective bibliographic and citation counts.