Patent ID: 8712391

Claim:
A method of managing group state information associated with a communication session that is mediated by a server, comprising: maintaining, at a given user equipment (UE) participating in the communication session, an identifier associated with the communication session and a list of UEs that are currently participating in the communication session; determining, at the given UE, to suppress a participation level of the given UE in the communication session; configuring a member update message to include the communication session identifier and to indicate the suppressed participation level of the given UE, wherein the member update message includes an individual identification of each other UE that is currently participating in the communication session; and transmitting the member update message to the server mediating the communication session for delivery to each other UE currently participating in the communication session based on each other UE's respective individual identification contained in the member update message without relying upon the server to track which UEs are currently participating in the communication session.