Patent ID: 7346696
Filing Date: 2008-03-18
Classification: H04L,Y10S

Abstract:
1. A system for limiting group access, comprising: a group access management system operable to store a plurality of resource lists, the resource lists comprising resources whose network statuses are able to be monitored by respective users, such resources comprising individual contacts for other users, network applications, at least one group contact, and at least one group comprising a plurality of members, said at least one group further comprising a group class of service marker associated with said at least one group and at least one rule for indicating network presence of the group contact based upon a subset of the plurality of members being present on a network, a resource list of a user being a persistent list of resources that are authorized to be accessed by the user, where a non-persistent list of current network statuses for the resources in the resource list are provided to the user; a service manager configured to keep track of presence information for the user and roster information for the resources contained in the resource list of the user and alert the user as to a change in state of presence and roster information; and a network service router coupled to the group access management system and being operable to route a service request for adding a group contact to the resource list of the user, the service request being granted, if the service request includes an adequate class of service marker with respect to the group class of service marker so that the user can view the current network status of the group contact after the group contact is added to the resource list of the user, the network service router being further configured to route a request for presence or roster information to the service manager.