Patent ID: 7353253
Filing Date: 2008-04-01
Classification: G06F,G06Q,H04L

Abstract:
1. A system for on-line collaborative computing between a plurality of machines comprising: a first client machine operable to transmit a sequence of messages related to an online collaborative meeting, wherein transmission of each message can be in the form of multicast delivery or reliable unicast delivery; and at least one second client machine operable to communicate with the first client machine, each second client machine operable to receive at least a portion of the sequence of messages transmitted in multicast form of delivery from the first client machine, to determine if there is an interest in the online collaborative meeting of the sequence of messages, to determine if any messages in the sequence have not been received if there is an interest, and to transmit a request for re-transmission to the first client machine identifying any messages of the sequence that were not received so that such messages can be re-transmitted by the first client machine to the at least one second client machine in the form of reliable unicast delivery; wherein each of the first client machine and the second client machine comprises a messaging library for supporting the transmission of each message in the form of multicast delivery or reliable unicast delivery, and each messaging library is adapted to receive a request from the other client machine for re-transmission of messages that were not received by multicast delivery and to re-transmit the requested messages to the other client machine using reliable unicast delivery.