Patent ID: 7656824

Claim:
A method for providing a private conversation channel in a videoconference session between at least three participants, comprising the steps of: providing an ability to send a private invitation to join a private conversation to a subset of the at least three participants of the videoconference session; providing an ability to receive a private acceptance in response to the private invitation; providing an ability to exclude non-parties to the private conversation from receiving private messages corresponding to the private conversation; providing an ability to determine respective locations of each of the at least three participants; providing an ability to allow the videoconference session to be initiated when a network link between the respective locations has a bandwidth above a pre-specified minimum bandwidth; providing an ability to evaluate a policy on videoconference sessions when the network link between the respective locations has the bandwidth not above the pre-specified minimum bandwidth; and providing an ability to reject the private invitation when an initiation of the videoconference session contravenes the policy.