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OwnerRobert D'Avello, Raymond Sokola +4inventors
InventorsRobert D'Avello, Raymond Sokola, Michael Newell, Scott Davis, Nick Grivas, James Van Bosch
Estimating the term…
An improved system and procedure for controlling the audio broadcast to users participating in a group conversation. In one embodiment, a communications server employs arbitration logic to decide which of the user has priority to speak, and accordingly mixes only the audio data steams for those users for broadcast to all users. The server can send notification to the user interfaces to inform the users of their current priority status and to allow the users to request that their priority be increased, decreased, eliminated, or passed on for the benefit of another user. A user may also attempt at his user interface to affect the priority of identified other users by informing the arbitration logic of a rating for that user. Additionally, a systems administrator may also arbitrate user priorities, either at his discretion or in conjunction with suggestions provided by the arbitration logic. Finally, and regardless of system-assessed priorities, a user may at his user interface tailor the group conversation broadcast to him by either blocking reception of audio from certain users or by reducing their volume, or may tailor his outgoing audio transmission so they are blocked from being received by selected group conversation participants.
A method for controlling a group voice conversation on a communication network, comprising:
A method for allowing a first user to control a group voice conversation on a communication network from a first user interface, comprising:
A method for allowing a first user to control a group voice conversation on a communication network from a first user interface, comprising:
A method for allowing a first user to control a group voice conversation on a communication network from a first user interface, comprising:
Dependencies are inferred from the claim text.