Patent ID: 7216172

Claim:
A method for generating a bi-directional communications link between a client and a server, the method comprising: testing an HTTP proxy server; to determine if the HTTP proxy server can communicate with said client using a quasi-persistent HTTP connection, by sending a test request comprising individual test data packets to the HTTP proxy server from said server; determining if the HTTP proxy server forwards each of said individual test data packets from the test request to the client upon receipt of each of said individual test data packets from the server; and if the HTTP proxy server does forward each of said individual data packets to the client upon receipt of each of said individual data packets, then generating at the server a response to a HTTP GET request having a first content-length value that is independent of the amount of data to be sent by the server in response to the HTTP GET request and large enough to establish a first quasi persistent HTTP connection between the client and the server via the HTTP proxy server; and receiving at the server a HTTP POST request having a second content-length value that is large enough to establish a second quasi-persistent HTTP connection between the client and the server via the HTTP proxy server.