Patent ID: 11943132
Assignee: INSTANTSHARE TECHNOLOGY LIMITED
Field: Digital communication (Electrical engineering)
Classification: CPC H  G | IPC G  H

Claim 0:
1. A method for communicating data among computing devices distributed over plural local area networks (LANs) interconnected by the Internet, the method comprising:
assigning an instant-share (InS) address to an individual computing device, wherein the InS address is recognizable by a dedicated router located in the Internet and enables the dedicated router to communicate with the individual computing device;
when the individual computing device has a first data message to be sent to a first computing device, and if the individual computing device and the first computing device are attached to different LANs, performing:
embedding, by the individual computing device, a first InS address into the first data message to form an extended first data message, wherein the first computing device is assigned with the first InS address;
forwarding, by the individual computing device, the extended first data message to the dedicated router; and
forwarding, by the dedicated router, the extended first data message to the first computing device according to the first InS address extracted from the extended first data message, thereby allowing the first data message to be sent across different LANs without a need for the first computing device to acquire a static IP address in accomplishing cross-LAN unicast communication;

and
for a communication group consisting of members selected from the computing devices, when an individual member has a third data message to be multicast to remaining members in the group, performing:
dividing the remaining members into first and second sets of members such that the individual member and each member in the first set are attached to different LANs and such that the individual member and each member in the second set are attached to a same LAN denoted as a second common LAN;
creating or obtaining, by the individual member, a multicast InS address for representing a first list of respective InS addresses of members in the first set;
informing, by the individual member, the dedicated router that the multicast InS address is associated with the first list of respective InS addresses;
embedding, by the individual member, the multicast InS address into the third data message to form an extended third data message;
forwarding, by the individual member, the extended third data message to the dedicated router; and
multicasting, by the dedicated router, the extended third data message to all members in the first set according to the first list of respective InS addresses, thereby allowing the third data message to be multicast across different LANs without a need for all members in the first set to acquire respective static IP addresses in accomplishing cross-LAN multicasting communication.