Patent ID: 8560617

Claim:
A multi-source transmission system of an Instant Messaging (IM) file, comprising a sender IM terminal and a receiver IM terminal which are connected with each other through a network and exchanges data with each other, and further comprising an off-line file server; the sender IM terminal is configured to generate file information and send the file information to the off-line file server; the off-line file server is configured to search replicas of the file according to the file information; when at least one replica is searched out, receive the file from at least two file sources by using a multi-source transmission mode, wherein the at least two file sources comprises the sender IM terminal and a file source of the at least one replica; when no replica is searched out, receive the file from the sender IM terminal; send the file information to the receiver IM terminal; the receiver IM terminal is configured to search for the replicas of the file according to file information sent by the off-line file server, and when at least one replica is searched out, receive the file from at least two file sources by using the multi-source transmission mode, wherein the at least two file sources comprise the off-line file server and a file source of the at least one replica; when no replica is searched out, receive the file from the off-line file server.