Patent ID: 7552175

Claim:
A method for controlling communication paths between conference members in a decentralized multi-party conference supporting a full mesh architecture, the method comprising: receiving a connection request message in a first system, the connection request message being sent from a second system; determining whether a pending communication path exists between the first and second system, in response to the connection request message; sending a connection acknowledgement to the second system, if no pending communication path exists between the first and second system, to establish a connection path between the first and the second system; receiving at the first system a join message from the second system; determining, by reading a flag in the first system in response to the join message, whether the first system is in a process of leaving the multi-party conference since establishing the connection path between the first and the second system; sending from the first system to the second system in response to the determining, an accept message to establish a video communication channel between the first and second system, if the first system is not in a process of leaving the multi-party conference, the accept message containing member information identifying other conference participants currently in the multi-party conference; and automatically sending a reject message from the first system to the second system, in response to the determining, if the first system is in a process of leaving the multi-party conference since establishing the connection path between the first and the second system.