Patent ID: 7953821

Claim:
A presence information providing system having connected thereto a plurality of presence services different in structure of presence information sent to and received from clients by presence servers, said presence information providing system comprising a presence processing server connected among said plurality of presence servers, processing said presence information received from one said presence service so that said received presence information matches other said presence services, and providing said processed presence information to other said presence services, wherein said presence processing server processes said presence information by reference to a processing policy in which a rule for allowing said presence information different in structure to be used among said plurality of presence services is set, wherein in said processing policy, a rule for processing presence information into said presence information which is provided to other presence services by reference to a plurality of said presence information given respective priorities, received from a plurality of said presence services, is set, wherein when said presence processing server processes said presence information received from said presence service, said presence processing server does not process said presence information even if said presence information from other said presence services of low priority is changed if said presence information from said presence service of high priority has a specific value, and wherein said presence processing server processes said presence information received from said presence service sequentially based on the respective priorities of said presence information.