Patent ID: 7958243

Claim:
A method of communications, the method comprising: establishing a host-based connection between a first client and a second client during a communications session, the host-based connection being a communications connection for the exchange of digital communications between the first client and the second client through a host system; enabling a user of the first client to communicate with a user of the second client by exchanging digital communications over the host-based connection during the communications session; sending, during the communications session and over the host-based connection, a request from the user of the first client to the user of the second client to establish a peer-to-peer connection between the first client and the second client that bypasses the host system; conditioned on the user of the second client accepting the request, establishing the peer-to-peer connection between the first client and the second client; and transmitting a particular digital communication to the second client over the peer-to-peer connection during the communications session.