Patent ID: 6970547

Claim:
A system for establishing communications between users comprising one or more communication devices for each said user, and a controller that monitors the states of said users, receives communication requests for the establishment of a communication between two or more said users, establishes a requested communication among two or more said users when said two or more said users are each in an appropriate state for participating in said communication, maintains waiting communications data associated with communication requests waiting to be established, referred to as waiting communications, sends a waiting communication notification with information about an addition, deletion, or change to the waiting communications or other change to the waiting communications data to at least one party that did not request the addition, deletion or change, responds to a waiting communication management request from a recipient of a waiting communications notification by modifying the waiting communications data; and responds to a change of state for a user by selecting at most one waiting communication that can be established because the corresponding users are each in an appropriate state for participating in the communication, said selecting based on the current waiting communications data.