Patent ID: 7269623

Claim:
A distributed multimodal collaboration system comprising: at least one server coupled to a network; a plurality of data sources coupled to the network; a plurality of clients executing on a corresponding plurality of client workstations coupled to the network; a tuple-space having a plurality of media descriptors, each one of the plurality of media descriptors having a media descriptor object, the tuple-space accessible by the plurality of data sources, and the plurality of clients; a descriptor distribution and invalidation protocol operative to distribute and invalidate descriptors accessible by the plurality of clients and the plurality of data sources; a transaction service for committing a plurality of transactions associated with the descriptor distribution and invalidation protocol; and a plurality of modality transformation services, each one of the plurality of modality transformation services having access to the descriptors in the tuple-space and each one of the plurality of modality transformation services communicating using a modality transformation negotiation protocol to select one of the plurality of modality transformation services.