Method and system for supporting the communication of presence information regarding one or more telephony devices

A system for conveying presence information about a first user to a second user, the first user having a plurality of computing devices that are capable of generating presence information, the second user having a computing device in communication with a computer network, the system comprising:

• one or more servers in communication with the computer network and executing programs comprising:
• a presence agent;
• and
• an aggregator component;
• computer-readable media accessible by the one or more servers and having stored thereon information regarding the second user's desire to monitor the presence of the first user,
• wherein the presence agent detects which of the plurality of computing devices indicates the highest degree of presence upon the network,
• wherein the aggregator component generates an aggregate document representing the degree to which the plurality of computing devices is present upon the network, and
• wherein the one or more servers transmit the aggregate presence document to the second user's computing device based on information stored in the computer readable media.

A method for generating an aggregate presence document representing the overall presence of a user, the method comprising:

• receiving a plurality of presence documents generated by a plurality of computing devices of the user, the presence documents including data representative of an activity level and availability level associated with each of the plurality of computing devices;
• analyzing the plurality of presence documents to identify at least one presence document that has a high presence priority setting;
• and
• generating the aggregate presence document based on the activity level and availability level associated with presence document having the high presence priority setting.

A method for generating aggregate presence information regarding one or more computing devices, the aggregate presence information indicating the overall presence of the one or more computing devices on a computer network, the method comprising:

• receiving a service message generated by at least one of the computing devices, the service message including one or more presence documents that contain presence information, the presence information including data representative of an activity level and availability level associated with each of the one or more computing devices;
• analyzing the plurality of presence documents to identify at least one of the presence documents that has a highest presence priority;
• and
• generating an aggregate presence document by including data representative of an activity level and availability level associated with the presence document identified as having the highest presence priority, the aggregate presence document also including other presence data obtained from the plurality of presence documents.

A system for communicating presence information related to a first computing device to a second computing device over a network by a presence agent, the presence agent communicating the presence information in response to a request message submitted by the second computing device, the request message requesting access by the second computing device to the presence information, the system comprising:

• means for receiving from the first computing device a message having one or more procedure calls for initiating the transfer of presence information to the presence agent;
• means for receiving from the first computing device a message having one or more procedure calls for initiating the transfer of access preferences associated with the first computing device to the presence agent;
• means for submitting an acceptance message to the second computing device indicating that the second computing device can access the presence information, the acceptance message being submitted regardless of whether the first computing device is present upon the network, and the acceptance message being submitted regardless of the access preferences specified by the first computing device;
• and
• means for submitting a notification message to the second computing device, the notification message including a presence document having data representative of an activity level and availability level associated with the first computing device, the notification message being submitted regardless of whether the first computing device is present upon the network.36. The system of claim 35 further comprising:
• means for storing information obtained from the request message submitted by the second computing device regarding the second user's desire to monitor the presence of the first user;
• and
• means for submitting the stored information to the first computing device in response to a request message from the first computing device to obtain the stored information.