Patent 10904481 was granted and assigned to Facebook on January, 2021 by the United States Patent and Trademark Office.
The present application describes a new protocol for broadcasting and managing participation in virtual calls via a digital communication service, such as a social medial platform. The protocol allows broadcasting indications of virtual conversations between user accounts to other user accounts. In some embodiments, the indications may include invitations to join the virtual conversation. The protocol allows broadcasting and managing of virtual conversations between multiple devices via a real-time communication (RTC) channel. The protocol includes exchange messages to cooperatively establish the conversation, broadcast an indication of the conversation to at least one non-participating user, and/or manage a set of participants for the conversation.