Electrical computers and digital processing systems: multicomput – Computer-to-computer data modifying
Reexamination Certificate
1998-02-05
2003-04-15
Rinehart, Mark H. (Department: 2152)
Electrical computers and digital processing systems: multicomput
Computer-to-computer data modifying
C709S202000, C709S203000, C709S204000, C709S206000
Reexamination Certificate
active
06549950
ABSTRACT:
TECHNICAL FIELD
The present invention relates to a system and method for creating and sending electronic mail, and more particularly relates to a system and method for simplifying the processes of resolving recipient names, indicating action items, utilizing custom forms, and tallying replies from a group of recipients.
BACKGROUND OF THE INVENTION
Electronic mail, or e-mail, is a service that transmits electronic messages from one computer to another. These messages may be simple text messages or more complex messages containing documents and data of various types. The transmission of e-mail messages may range from transmission over a short distance, such as over a local area network between employees in adjoining offices, to. transmission over extremely long distances, such as over the global Internet between users on different continents.
Generally, to send an e-mail message via an e-mail system, a user opens an e-mail program module and types a message and other information into an e-mail form. The e-mail form contains a number of fields for the recipients' addresses, the subject of the message, and the message itself. The user may also attach separate files to the e-mail message. Before sending the e-mail message, the user must enter the recipient's e-mail address, which is used by the e-mail system to route the message to the intended recipient.
After composing an e-mail message and entering the recipient's address, the user sends the message by invoking a “send” command. The e-mail system then sends the message to the recipient. At the recipient's computer, the recipient typically will receive a visual or auditory cue, such as a ringing bell, when an e-mail message has been received in the recipient's inbox. The recipient may then open the e-mail program and view a list of the messages in the inbox. The recipient may view the complete text of a message by selecting and opening that message.
E-mail is becoming increasingly popular because it is a quick, convenient, and easy way to exchange information and communicate with others. E-mail offers numerous advantages over other forms of communication. For example, e-mail is less intrusive than a telephone call because the recipient of an e-mail message may wait until a convenient time to retrieve and respond to the message rather than being immediately interrupted. Another advantage of e-mail is the ability to communicate with large groups of people by sending a single e-mail message to multiple recipients. Still another advantage of e-mail is the ability of attaching documents in electronic format to an e-mail message.
E-mail messages are composed in the context of a “form.” A form is an object that is used to display a message in a structured format. An e-mail form typically provides a plurality of fields, including an address field, a “From” field, a “Subject” field, a “cc” field, and a “Body” field. The user of the e-mail system composes the message by entering data into some or all of the fields on the form.
E-mail forms typically incorporate verbs, which are commands that a form is capable of executing. Typical verbs include commands such as reply, forward, open, and print. For example, a recipient may generate a reply to an e-mail message by clicking on a reply button. In response to the reply command, the e-mail program carries out the instructions associated with the “reply” verb. This includes copying the data in the address field of the incoming message to the “From” field of the reply, copying the data in the “From” field of the incoming message to the address field of the reply, and adding “Re:” before the data in the “Subject” field.
Although e-mail provides a valuable and useful tool, current e-mail systems are not without their drawbacks. For instance, an e-mail system must have a unique, specific destination address in order to deliver an e-mail message to the correct recipient. In many cases, e-mail addresses are not intuitive derivatives of a person's name and may be difficult for the user to remember. Also, because the address must be specific, a typographical error entered by the user will result in the message being misdelivered or not delivered at all.
Before the e-mail system can send a message, all of the names in the address field must be “resolved,” or matched with the valid address of a particular user. In most e-mail systems, the recipients' names are resolved when the user invokes the “send” command or a “check names” command. In either case, the e-mail system resolves unambiguous names without user intervention and prompts the user to resolve ambiguous names by selecting the correct name from a short list.
As an example, Jim Peterson is sending an e-mail message to his friend Dave. In the address field of the message, Jim enters the name “Dave.” An address book or directory, which is stored on the server, is used by the e-mail system to match the name “Dave” with the appropriate recipient. In a small company or organization with only one user named Dave, entering “Dave” in the address field would be unambiguous to the e-mail system and the e-mail system would match the name “Dave” to the correct, unique e-mail address. However, in a company or organization with multiple Daves, the name must be resolved to the correct Dave. This method of resolving names is inconvenient because the user must execute an extra step to resolve the names before the message is sent. This is especially inconvenient if a user only sends mail to one “Dave” although the address book contains many “Daves.” Also, as companies and organizations expand, the e-mail system address book continues to grow, thereby increasing the chances for ambiguity. The potential is created for false matches resulting in misdirected e-mail.
One attempt to simplify the process of resolving names is to implement a feature that monitors the user's typing of characters in the address field and volunteers the full name when the user types enough characters to uniquely identify one recipient. Alternatively, in another attempted solution, the user can type in a number of characters and get a list of recipients whose name begins with the characters typed in by the user. Neither of these solutions provides a satisfactory solution to the problem of resolving names. First, a long string of characters may need to be entered before a unique name is found. Also, for certain names, such as John Smith, a unique name may never be found even if the entire name is entered. In addition, the user must enter the name exactly as it appears in the directory even if one part of a name is more unique than another part of a name. For example, “MacDonald” is probably more unique than “John,” but a user must enter the name as “John Mac . . . ” if that is how the name appears in the directory. Furthermore, these attempted solutions require the user's attention to complete the resolution of the names.
In addition to the drawbacks associated with verifying e-mail addresses, current e-mail systems do not provide the user with an effective way to organize and manage the user's e-mail inbox. Many businesses rely on an e-mail system as one of the main modes of communication between individuals, resulting in users often having to deal with large numbers of e-mail messages. In cases where an e-mail user has received messages that delegate responsibilities or request specific follow-up actions, these messages may easily be lost in a flood of other e-mail messages. Even if a recipient has a manageable amount of e-mail messages in his or her inbox, requests for action are often buried in the body of an e-mail message and the recipient may not realize that an action has been requested.
E-mail systems usually provide only rudimentary mechanisms for identifying and sorting important messages that require some sort of action. For example, one mechanism for identifying and sorting important messages is for the sender of the message to set a priority for the message that the recipient will receive with the message. In the alternative, the s
Carlson Andrew G.
Lytle Andrew T.
MacDonald Brian W.
Thurlow Scott A.
Kang Paul
Merchant & Gould
Microsoft Corporation
Rinehart Mark H.
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