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

Claim 15:
16. 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
establishing a communication group consisting of members selected from the computing devices, wherein in establishing the group, the group is updated from time to time in response to admission of new members and leave of existing members, and wherein the establishing of the group comprises:
identifying a host among the members for managing admission of the new members into the group and removal of the existing members from the group;
creating and keeping, by an individual member in the group, a local list of group members at the individual member, wherein the local list of group members records all the members in the group, and includes a timestamp of last update for indicating recency of the local list of group members;
updating, by the host, a corresponding local list of group members of the host in response to occurrence of new-member admission or existing-member removal, wherein the host's corresponding local list of group members is an authentic list of group members for the communication group; and
regularly updating, by a non-host member in the group, a corresponding local list of group members of the non-host member with the authentic list of group members.