Patent ID: 7626991

Claim:
A method for use in managing a message between Instant Messaging (IM) networks, comprising: receiving an IM message from a source IM network; examining the received IM message to determine a destination IM network; if a message protocol associated with the received IM message is substantially different from a message protocol associated with the destination IM network, translating the received IM message protocol to the message protocol associated with the destination IM network; if a message feature associated with the received IM message is unsupported by the destination IM network, translating the unsupported message feature in the received IM message to a message feature supported by the destination IM network; if the translation of the received IM message protocol is determined to be unsuccessful, providing an error message to a source device of the received IM message; and if the translation of the received IM message feature is determined to be unsuccessful, providing an error message to a source device of the received IM message; and forwarding the translated IM message towards the destination IM network.