Patent ID: 7593986

Claim:
A method in a computer system with a processor and a memory for routing data in a conference with channels having sources and sinks, the method comprising: providing in the memory a routing table specifying which sinks are connected to which sources, wherein the providing of the routing table includes: for each type of connection, specifying the rules that indicate which sink types are to be connected to which source types; and when a channel is added to the conference, updating the routing table to identify connections between the source and sink of the added channel and existing sources and sinks of the conference based on the specified rules for the connection type of the conference; upon completion of each of a plurality of time periods during the conference, collecting data for the time period from one or more sources; identifying, from the provided routing table and the sources from which the data is collected, unique combinations of sources of the collected data that is to be provided to one or more sinks; and for each of a plurality of unique combination of sources, mixing by the processor the data from the sources; and for each sink that is to receive collected data for the unique combination of sources, sending to the sink the mixed data for the unique combination of sources that the sink is to receive so that, for each unique combination of sources, the collected data for that unique combination of sources need only be mixed once for sending to the sinks that are to receive that mixed data upon completion of the time period.