Patent ID: 8078680

Claim:
A method for connecting one or more packet-switch based clients utilizing a packet-switched conferencing server to one or more circuit-switch based clients utilizing a circuit-switched conferencing server, the method comprising the steps of: (1) establishing, by the packet-switched conferencing server, an active connection to the circuit-switched conferencing server; (2) designating, by the packet-switched conferencing server, a first client of the packet-switch based clients as a first active speaker; (3) designating, by the circuit-switched conferencing server, a second client of the circuit-switch based clients as a second active speaker; (4) designating, by the circuit-switched conferencing server, a third client of the circuit-switch based clients as a third active speaker; (5) receiving, by the packet-switched conferencing server, over the active connection, a first audio packet from the circuit-switched conferencing server, wherein the first audio packet is a mixture of audio packets received from the second client and received from the third client and is converted by the circuit-switched conferencing server to a format that the first client can receive; (6) forwarding, by the packet-switched conferencing server, the first audio packet to the first client; (7) receiving, by the packet-switched conferencing server, a second audio packet from the first client; (8) forwarding, over the active connection, the second audio packet to the circuit-switched conferencing server, wherein the circuit-switched conferencing server converts the second audio packet into a format that the second and third clients can receive; (9) mixing the first audio packet with the second audio packet to form a composite packet; and (10) forwarding the composite packet to each of the packet-switch based clients, wherein for each packet-switch based client of the packet-switch based clients, said packet-switch based client receives the composite packet without an audio packet that had been transmitted from said packet-switch based client to the packet-switched conferencing server; wherein the packet-switched conferencing server is independent from the circuit-switched conferencing server; wherein the packet-switched conferencing server creates a first list of the packet-switch based clients who have been designated as active speakers and limits the number of active speaking packet-switch based clients; and wherein the circuit-switched conferencing server creates a second list of the circuit-switch based clients who have been designated as active speakers and limits the number of active speaking circuit-switch based clients.