Patent ID: 9473546
Filing Date: 2016-10-18
CPC Classification: H04L

Claim Text:
1. A method, comprising: examining, by a multi-control unit (MCU), a plurality of first requests in a first protocol to identify participants in a media session in a network environment, wherein the participants comprise computing devices connected to the network; examining a plurality of second requests in a second protocol to determine media characteristics negotiated by the participants; grouping the participants into different groups based, at least in part, on the negotiated media characteristics, wherein at least some of the participants associated with identical media characteristics are grouped together; requesting a conference server in the network to transmit a single copy of each unicast media stream having distinct media characteristics; examining a plurality of incoming unicast media streams from the conference server, the plurality of incoming unicast media streams comprising one copy each of separate unicast media streams having distinct media characteristics; matching the distinct media characteristics of at least one of the unicast media streams to the negotiated media characteristics of one of the groups; and forking the at least one of the unicast media streams into duplicate media streams conforming to the participants in the matched group.