Electrical computers and digital processing systems: multicomput – Distributed data processing – Processing agent
Reexamination Certificate
2000-10-10
2001-11-06
Etienne, Ario (Department: 2155)
Electrical computers and digital processing systems: multicomput
Distributed data processing
Processing agent
C709S207000, C707S793000
Reexamination Certificate
active
06314450
ABSTRACT:
BACKGROUND OF THE INVENTION
1. Field of the Invention
This invention relates to a method and apparatus for collecting data for exchanging E-mails between communication terminals, such as personal computers, over a communication network, and data for a storage medium for a data collection program.
2. Description of Related Art
As a configuration of utilizing the Internet for providing a global-scale communication network environment capable of exchanging the information between mutually spaced-apart computers, an electronic mail (E-mail) is in widespread use.
In an Internet E-mail system, mail servers are provided in a distributed fashion in each domain. The client user sends or receives an E-mail to or from a mail server of the domain to which he or she belongs.
That is, a sender states the contents he or she desires to send and accords a required address and name by a client tool for an E-mail termed a mailer (software for sending/receiving the mail) or a browser (perusal/retrieval software) for sending the address and the mail to the receiver.
The mail server of a domain to which the sender belongs sends the mail for transmission to a representative mail server of an organization. The representative mail server accords an address of the server
ode to be arrived at to send the address to the network, which then refers to the address to sequentially transfer the mail to the mail server to which belongs the counterpart of communication (receiver).
The receiver recognizes the arrival of the E-mail in his or her post by various means such as display of a notice of arrival upon starting the mailer so that he or she can read the sent mail.
In order for the user having no experience in using the personal computer to be able to comprehend the mailer operating method intuitively, there has been proposed a method for sending and receiving the E-mail using an agent on his or her behalf, such as a pet like a rabbit or a tortoise. This displays the process of receiving and delivering the E-mail or the process of E-mail delivery from another user to permit intuitive comprehension of the act of mail delivery between users.
With the above-mentioned E-mail system, the agent parameters controlling the behavior of each pet is varied each time the user causes his or her own pet to send the E-mail such that the pet is improved in ability or lowered in physical power.
On the other hand, in keeping with the recent development of the Internet, the tendency is for enterprises to provide home pages for marketing, prize offering or recruiting of working staffs. These home pages also provide questionnaires as to marketed goods and accept entry for rewards and recruiting. An extremely large number of E-mails are received by applicants and a lot of man power is necessary to collect the mail contents to arrive at the results. These results cannot be acquired with ease even if the accepting format of the E-mails is unified for curtailing the man power.
In the E-mail sending/receiving system, it is contemplated to send pet agents of the user to a mail address introduced in a specified home page to make entries of the pets of the respective users and to collect the agent parameters sent until entry closure to set ranks of the slimness contest or scholastic examinations. However, it is difficult to collect the agent parameters of the pets to display the results in view of the enormous man power involved in the collection.
SUMMARY OF THE INVENTION
It is an object of the present invention to provide a method and apparatus for collecting data and a storage medium for a data collection program in an E-mail sending/receiving system for sending/receiving E-mails using virtual pets displayed on the real-world oriented GUI screen as agents, in which the results of events held in the presence of the virtual pets are collected by the server and the results are automatically presented to the users.
In one aspect, the present invention provides a method for collecting data including receiving a plurality of E-mails, extracting a mail header and agent parameters from each received E-mail, collecting the agent parameters associated with a pre-set mail header from the mail headers collected from the E-mails and displaying the ranks of the agents corresponding to the agent parameters based on the collected results of the agent parameters.
In another aspect, the present invention provides an apparatus for collecting data including means for receiving a plurality of E-mails, means for extracting a mail header and agent parameters from each received E-mail, means for collecting the agent parameters associated with a pre-set mail header from the mail headers collected from the E-mails and means for displaying the ranks of the agents corresponding to the agent parameters based on the collected results of the agent parameters.
In yet another aspect, the present invention provides a medium for storage of a data collection program having stored therein a computer-readable data collection program adapted for performing control of receiving a plurality of E-mails, extracting a mail header and agent parameters from each received E-mail, collecting the agent parameters associated with a pre-set mail header from the mail headers collected from the E-mails and displaying the ranks of the agents corresponding to the agent parameters based on the collected results of the agent parameters.
With the data collecting method and apparatus according to the present invention, it is possible for the server to collect the agent parameters associated with a pre-set one of mail headers extracted from the E-mails sent from the users to generate display data for the collected results to automatically discriminate the contents of the E-mails sent from the users to present automatically the collected results responsive to the users' requests. For presenting the collected results, data of the collected results may be arranged in a HTML file for presentation on the home page, or the agents corresponding to the HTML file may be presented on the whole page. Alternatively, the contents of the collected results may be returned to and presented to the senders of the E-mails.
Thus, according to the present invention, the results of various events held in the presence of the virtual pets presented on the real-world oriented GUI screen can be easily collected by the server and presented to the users in the E-mail exchange system in which the E-mails are exchanged using the virtual pets as agents.
Also, with the storage medium for a data collection program according to the present invention, the function of collecting the agent parameters associated with a pre-set one of the mail headers extracted from the E-mails and presenting the collected results to the users can be installed and manifested on the collection apparatus associated operatively with the E-mail sending/receiving system.
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Hachiya Kazuhiko
Kitamura Michio
Koki Takashi
Otaki Namie
Bell Boyd & Lloyd LLC
Etienne Ario
Sony Corporation
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