Patent ID: 7864714

Claim:
A method for managing a conference call, comprising: automatically obtaining first information from at least two connection devices of the conference call, wherein the first information for each connection device specifies a plurality of connection capabilities of that connection device, wherein the plurality of connection capabilities comprises a number of multipoint ports for the corresponding connection device; automatically storing the first information in a data structure in a memory, wherein the data structure comprises an alphanumeric string representing the plurality of connection capabilities; wherein said automatically obtaining and automatically storing are performed by a software program without user input specifying the obtaining and storing; determining routing information based on the first information in the data structure, wherein the routing information indicates, without user intervention, each connection device how to connect to the other connection devices of the conference call, wherein the routing information specifies a first connection device as a host of the conference call, and wherein said determining the routing information is based on the number of multipoint ports of the first connection device; and connecting the at least two connection devices using the routing information.