Patent ID: 8010611

Claim:
A method for processing deferred messages, applicable in an instant message (IM) system under Session Initiated Protocol (SIP) and Instant Message and Presence Leveraging Extensions (SIMPLE), said method comprising storing the deferred messages, notifying of the deferred messages and retrieving the deferred messages, wherein said storing the deferred messages comprises storing, by the IM system, the deferred messages to be sent to a user in a case that the user pre-requests for storing the deferred messages; where the deferred messages comprise meta-data and content, the meta-data is stored in an IM Extensible Markup Language Document Management Server entity (IM XDMS entity) and the content is stored in a deferred message content storage entity; said notifying of the deferred messages comprises determining there are deferred messages for the user stored in the IM system by an IM server associated with a client of the user when the user gets online, and sending a deferred message notification to the client of the user under subscribed configuration in a case that the user subscribes the deferred message notification; and said retrieving the deferred messages comprises sending the deferred messages to the client by the IM server in response to a request from the client for retrieving the deferred messages after the client receives the deferred message notification.