Check this out: http://www.msnbc.com/news/848770.asp?0dm=C14KT
Now as well all know, when AOL had the settlement in their court case they were allowed to keep their systems closed to other services (like MSN, Yahoo and those) until they added "advanced features" to their IM client. Well thanks to the detective work of users on this board, it has been discovered that video chat will soon be added to the list of features of iChat (which is an AIM service, so it must be assumed that AIM will add it as well). Video chat is an "advanced feature" according to the settlement, and because they are implementing it, they must open their networks to MSN and Yahoo.
This is something AOL doesn't want to do, because it allows other services to use their ads while mainting the compability to the most popular chat client service. AOL is going to get around this by using this patent. If they want to, they can now sue MSN and Yahoo out of the IM game completly! Once they are gone, the settlement will be nullified and AIM can have it's own network and video chat. Pretty intresting if you think about it. This might even go to the point why they have such good integration with ICQ. ICQ is older than AIM, but now that they have it as well, they can call their "network" (which is really the one that they bought) the oldest one around and legitally apply for the patent.
BEN
Now as well all know, when AOL had the settlement in their court case they were allowed to keep their systems closed to other services (like MSN, Yahoo and those) until they added "advanced features" to their IM client. Well thanks to the detective work of users on this board, it has been discovered that video chat will soon be added to the list of features of iChat (which is an AIM service, so it must be assumed that AIM will add it as well). Video chat is an "advanced feature" according to the settlement, and because they are implementing it, they must open their networks to MSN and Yahoo.
This is something AOL doesn't want to do, because it allows other services to use their ads while mainting the compability to the most popular chat client service. AOL is going to get around this by using this patent. If they want to, they can now sue MSN and Yahoo out of the IM game completly! Once they are gone, the settlement will be nullified and AIM can have it's own network and video chat. Pretty intresting if you think about it. This might even go to the point why they have such good integration with ICQ. ICQ is older than AIM, but now that they have it as well, they can call their "network" (which is really the one that they bought) the oldest one around and legitally apply for the patent.
BEN