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.
