Patent ID: 7957307

Claim:
A method in a computing device for reducing the effects of packet loss when sending data between a sending endpoint and receiving endpoints, the sending endpoint being a video conferencing server and the receiving endpoints being devices of participants participating in a video conference, the data being video of the video conference, the method comprising: for each of multiple receiving endpoints, sending to the receiving endpoint first data packets of the video; and receiving from the receiving endpoint an indication of a rate of packet loss experienced by the receiving endpoint while receiving the first data packets; producing first protection packets and second protection packets for second data packets containing the data, the first protection packets providing a first level of protection and the second protection packets providing a second level of protection, the second level of protection being higher than the first level of protection; and for each of multiple receiving endpoints, determining by the computing device whether to apply the first level of protection or the second level of protection to the second data packets to be sent to the receiving endpoint based on the received indication of the rate of packet loss that was received from the receiving endpoint; sending to the receiving endpoint second data packets containing the data of the video; and sending to the receiving endpoint the first protection packets and not the second protection packets when it is determined to apply the first level of protection and both the first protection packets and the second protection packets when it is determined to apply the second level of protection, the first protection packets and second protection packets comprising information with which the receiving endpoint can recover a lost data packet, such that when a second data packet is lost the receiving endpoint can recover the data of the lost second data packet using the sent first protection packets when the receiving endpoint is sent the first protection packets and not the second protection packet or selectively using the first protection packets or the second protection packets when the receiving endpoint is sent both the first protection packets and the second protection packets without additional communication with the sending endpoint and wherein the first protection packets and the second protection packets are not separately produced for each receiving endpoint and multiple receiving endpoints each receive the first protection packets and not the second protection packets and multiple receiving endpoints each receive both the first protection packets and the second protection packets.