Electrical computers and digital processing systems: support – Multiple computer communication using cryptography – Protection at a particular protocol layer
Reexamination Certificate
1999-03-31
2003-10-21
Barrón, Gilberto (Department: 2134)
Electrical computers and digital processing systems: support
Multiple computer communication using cryptography
Protection at a particular protocol layer
C713S165000, C713S154000, C709S206000
Reexamination Certificate
active
06636965
ABSTRACT:
BACKGROUND OF THE INVENTION
The present invention relates to messaging systems in general, and in particular to enhancements to electronic messaging systems such as voice mail, e-mail or multimedia messaging systems.
E-mail and voice mail are rapidly becoming the communication media of choice, as compared to the practice of drafting and circulating written memorandums, for many businesses and individuals. While voice mail and e-mail allow information to be disseminated rapidly to a number of recipients, it has generally been difficult to create customized messages for particular recipients without generating each message individually. For example, a president of a company may wish to inform the employees of a meeting to be held at a specific time and place. Therefore, the president drafts an e-mail message to be sent to all employees informing them of the meeting. In addition, the president may ask certain managers to be prepared to discuss particular items at the meeting but for some reason does not want all employees to know this fact. In the past, if the president wanted to inform the managers of their discussion topics, separate messages had to be created and sent to each manager. Often, to give the appearance that everyone gets the same message, the main message would be sent to everyone and then resent with comments to a smaller group, e.g., managers. This results in the message sender having to send the same message (with variations depending on the distribution) multiple times, and some recipients would be forced to spend unnecessary time in opening and handling the multiple messages. In order to communicate the same main message to all employees and to provide additional information to selected group(s) of those employees, multiple messages with different distribution lists would need to be created, sent and opened. Besides being inconvenient to users, this approach can also create bandwidth issues in some types of messaging systems on, for example, local area networks.
From the above discussion, it is seen that more convenient and efficient messaging systems that allow sending a general message with private comments for selected recipients are desirable.
SUMMARY OF THE INVENTION
The present invention allows a user to efficiently create customized e-mail, voice mail or multimedia messages by creating a common portion of a message which is to be sent to a number of recipients, creating one or more comments which are attached to the common message portion for receipt by one or more particular recipients. Then, the user can cause the message with comment(s) to be sent to the recipients by the messaging system. The comments are encrypted such that they cannot be read or heard by all recipients but only by the intended recipient(s).
In one embodiment of the invention, the messaging system analyzes an address list containing the recipients to whom the message is to be addressed. If a recipient has been designated to receive the comment, the comment is decrypted and included with the common message portion before transmission to the recipient. If the recipient is not designated to receive the comment, then the messaging system transmits only the common message portion to the recipient.
In another embodiment of the invention, the common message portion is transmitted to all recipients along with an icon or other prompt indicating that a comment is attached to the message. Upon selecting the icon or prompt, the messaging system asks the recipient for a password or other security code. If the password is entered correctly, the messaging system checks to see whether the recipient is on a list of recipients to receive the comment, and if the recipient is on the list, decrypts the comment for the recipient.
These and other embodiments of the invention, as well as its advantages, will be described in more detail below in conjunction with the following drawings.
REFERENCES:
patent: 4888800 (1989-12-01), Marshall et al.
patent: 5515491 (1996-05-01), Bates et al.
patent: 5781732 (1998-07-01), Adams
patent: 5889943 (1999-03-01), Ji et al.
patent: 6192396 (2001-02-01), Kohler
patent: 0 306 781 A2 (1989-03-01), None
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M2 Presswire, “NORTEL: Nortel delivers unified messaging to Microsoft & Lotus e-mail inboxes with Messanger 3.0” Feb. 25, 1998, pp. 1-2.*
Network Computing Oct. 15, 1997, Philip Carden, “Stored file encryption: Boiled eggs and scrambled data”, p. 2.*
Feb. 1999, www.securitydynamics.com/products/datasheets/secupc.html.
Beyda William J.
Shaffer Shmuel
Barrón Gilberto
Brown Christopher
Siemens Information & Communication Networks, Inc.
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