Out-Law News 1 min. read

AOL has patent for instant messaging


America Online has the patent rights to instant messaging, or IM, one of the most popular applications on the internet, which lets those on-line with compatible networking software to communicate in real time.

AOL's own IM products, AOL Instant Messenger (AIM) and ICQ are the most popular networks, with more than 100 million registered users each. Microsoft and Yahoo! provide competing products – but will likely face demands for royalties on pain of litigation if AOL decides to assert its patent rights.

The technology protected by the patent is widely defined. The following is its abstract:

"The present invention discloses a communication system including a communications network, a multiplicity of communications terminals which are connectable to the communications network and which can be employed by users to communicate via the communications network, the user not necessarily being identified with a given communications terminal, apparatus for monitoring whether or not a user is connected to the communications network irrespective of which of the multiplicity of communications terminals that user is employing, and apparatus for annunciating to a seeking user, currently connected to the communications network via any of the multiplicity of communications terminals, network connection status information relating to other users who are in a set of sought users, which set is definable by the seeking user, and for providing the seeking user connection address information relating to those sought users who are currently connected to the communications network."

Basically, this appears to cover all IM applications, both desktop and mobile, and possibly other forms of point-to-point communications.

The patent was granted in September 2002 but it was only yesterday that it came to light, after being picked up by news site InstantMessagingPlanet.com. Originally filed in 1997 by the then-owner of ICQ, Israeli start-up Mirabilis, AOL acquired the rights one year later when it bought Mirabilis for $287 million.

The full text of AOL's patent is available at the US Patent and Trade Mark Office's web site.

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