Multiplex communications – Pathfinding or routing – Combined circuit switching and packet switching
Reexamination Certificate
1997-10-24
2002-04-09
Marcelo, Melvin (Department: 2663)
Multiplex communications
Pathfinding or routing
Combined circuit switching and packet switching
C707S793000, C707S793000, C709S203000
Reexamination Certificate
active
06370139
ABSTRACT:
BACKGROUND OF THE INVENTION
1. Field of the Invention
The present invention relates to a message broadcast system. More particularly, the present invention relates to a system and method of accepting message data from a plurality of sources and automatically uploading this data to a plurality of preselected, external database systems while controlling these database systems to reflect the information contained in the message. Particular utility of the present invention is in the prevention of receiving unsolicited email, mail and telephone calls from direct advertisers by providing a system for the automatic removal of personal identification data from the database systems of bulk mailing and marketing groups. Another utility for the present invention is for an information dispersal system by providing a system for the automatic dispersion of information and/or information request data to a plurality of preselected database systems that contain data related to the information and/or information request data; although other utilities are contemplated herein.
2. Description of Related Art
One problem that virtually every person who receives mail has experienced is receiving unsolicited advertisements or so-called “junk mail”. Most people find junk mail to be time consuming and frustrating because they must sift through the unsolicited ads to get to important mail. Email users who have email accounts on the internet suffer from the same dilemma, as unsolicited email advertisements have become a highly popular method of attracting business. Again, receivers must waste valuable time reading and deleting unsolicited email while trying to read important email. Telemarketing, like bulk mailing and bulk emailing, has grown into a multi-billion dollar industry and is particularly frustrating because often telemarketers choose to telephone prospective customers at hours when customers are likely to be home (e.g., nights, weekends, etc.).
The majority of unsolicited advertisements, via mail, email, or telephone, stem from direct mail marketing groups who maintain vast databases containing thousands of individuals' personal identification (e.g., name, email address, mailing address, telephone number, etc.). These direct mail marketing groups, or “warehouses”, sell customer lists to direct mail, email and telephone advertisers, where each list contains a certain number of individual personal identification data.
According to several authorities, there are over 123,000,000 postal addresses in the U.S. that receive mail from the U.S. Postal Service. Individually, an average of 41 pounds of mail are sent to every adult per year. About 44% goes unread directly into the garbage and about 93% of junk mail is ultimately discarded. The average American spends 8 full months of their life opening postal bulk mail. In addition to time waste imposed by bulk mail upon the receiver, bulk mailing has substantial environmental impacts as well. Approximately 60% of bulk mail is never read, rather, it is discarded immediately. This greatly contributes to the amount of solid waste deposited in land fills, where it is estimated that 49% of municipal solid waste is generated from paper and paper products. Thus, bulk mailing creates an individual impact in terms of frustrating time waste, and an environmental impact in terms of excess solid waste.
Producing such a vast amount of paper products used by bulk mailers also has significant environmental consequences. Dioxin, one of the most toxic substances known, is generated by paper mills which use chlorine bleaching in their process of producing PVC (polyvinyl chloride) mailers and bags, as used quite often by bulk mailers. Aside from the immediate toxicity of dioxin, the long-term affects of exposure to dioxin are now known to include an overall increase of cancer, reduced sperm count and breast cancer.
There are over 14.7 million people in the US who access on-line services. Direct mailers and bulk mailers are now using the internet to target email addresses. Junk email, or “spam”, is an annoyance because the recipient must open the mail, read it and then delete the message. In addition bulk email consumes finite internet resources by consuming memory space, access time and phone line usage which in turn consumes energy and natural resources.
Bulk mailers and direct market advertisers admit that there is very little success from bulk mailing. Rather, the approach is to “blanket the market” with thousands of mailings knowing that the return is a very small percentage. One solution to prevent bulk mail, bulk email and unsolicited telephone calls is that a person can have his or her information deleted from the database of a bulk mailer or direct advertiser. However, a person must contact each of these warehouses individually to have his or her personal information removed. There are, at present, approximately 4200 such warehouses, thus, it would be virtually impossible for an individual to access all of the warehouses that contain personal data that is sold to, or used by, bulk mailers, bulk emailers and direct telemarketers. Furthermore, more and more direct marketing warehouses are appearing because of the tremendous financial value of supplying personal identification data to direct mailers and marketing groups.
Thus, there exists a need for a system that will allow a user to supply a message containing personal information such as name, address, email address and telephone number to a central controller and have the central controller automatically broadcast the message to a plurality of preselected database systems containing the personal information, and to have a central controller control these database systems to remove personal information from the database systems.
Most states have laws mandating that direct mailers and marketing groups remove personal information from their customer lists, upon request from an individual. However, as mentioned above, an individual must contact every direct mail and marketing warehouse in order to effectively remove their personal information from being accessed by bulk mailer, bulk emailers and telemarketers. Accordingly, there exists a need to allow an individual upload a request to remove personal information from a vast collection into a central controller and have that central controller upload that individuals request to a plurality of database systems, whereby the administrators of such database systems will remove that individuals personal information from the database, as required by law.
There exist many commercially available products that provide a system to remove “spam” (unsolicited email) from an email account. However these products typically employ a locally stored program that contains a locally stored list of known “spamers”, where the program simply filters out any email matching the list of known “spamers”. Thus, disadvantageously, any new “spamers” having new email addresses will not be filtered out. Moreover, a spamer need only change the email address to circumvent such a system. Most significantly, such systems do not solve the ultimate problem of unsolicited email because such systems fail to remove email account information from the source of the spam, i.e., marketing warehouses.
Unfortunately, none of the prior art systems discloses a system having a central controller that automatically broadcasts a user supplied message to a preselected set of external databases and control those databases to reflect information data contained in the message. Moreover, none of the prior art message broadcast systems contemplate providing a system that utilizes a centralized controller that allows customers to upload personal identification data whereby the centralized controller automatically communicates with and controls a plurality of preselected databases to remove information from those databases that matches the personal identification data. In addition, none of the prior art systems provide a message broadcast system that allows a user to upload a removal request to a central controller and ha
Inouye Patrick J. S.
Marcelo Melvin
Tranz-Send Broadcasting Network, Inc.
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