Electrical computers and digital processing systems: multicomput – Computer conferencing – Demand based messaging
Reexamination Certificate
2000-06-07
2004-04-13
Luu, Le Hien (Department: 2141)
Electrical computers and digital processing systems: multicomput
Computer conferencing
Demand based messaging
C709S207000, C709S204000
Reexamination Certificate
active
06721785
ABSTRACT:
FIELD OF THE INVENTION
This invention relates to a system for directing e-mail to selected sets of recipients.
BACKGROUND OF THE INVENTION
Electronic mail provides a quick and convenient way for computer users to communicate. This communication is initiated by a message sender who composes the message using a text editing program, provides the e-mail address of the intended recipient, and often provides an indication of the content (subject matter) of the message by providing text in a “subject” field. Using well-understood technology this composed message is then sent to the recipient's computer address. The recipient's computer receives the message and stores it in the recipient's inbox. The recipient eventually reads, deletes, responds to, or otherwise processes the message stored within the inbox by using any of a number of email programs well known in the art.
The header portion of an email message contains fields composed of character strings comprising a field-name followed by a colon, followed by a field-body terminated by a carriage return/line feed. An example header field is:
“To: John Doc<CR><LF>”.
In this example, the <CR> represents the ASCII carriage return character and the <LF> represents the ASCII line feed character. The header filed-names are not case sensitive, thus, “to:” is equivalent to “TO:” or “tO:”.
The contents of these headers are specified by the entity that composes the message.
The “To:” field-body contains the addresses of the primary recipients of the message where the address of each recipient is separated by a comma. Recipients include both humans and programs. The “Subject:” field-body often provides a summary, or indicates the nature, of the message and sometimes contains a specialized command string that is to be recognized by the recipient. Although, these fields are all initialized by the sender, the recipient fields are generally limited to actual Internet addresses. On the other hand, the subject field has no specific meaning and may, in fact, be blank, contain a specialized command string or contain a random arrangement of characters. Additional “cc:” and “bcc:” field bodies are optional means for sending declared and undeclared (‘blind’) copies of the message to one recipient or groups of recipients.
A sender can address a single message to many recipients by separating the addresses of the recipients with a comma. Each of these recipients may respond to the original message by sending a reply message to the same list of recipients (plus the original sender). Some of these recipients may then respond to the first reply message. These reply messages are termed follow-up messages to the original message. This process facilitates a vigorous discussion between the original sender and the recipients, as well as between the recipients.
Very often, a recipient or group of recipients who are frequently contacted, are identified by an alias (a name string) in order to facilitate identification and/or reduce the burden of repeatedly entering the individual email addresses. An alias may correspond to a group of email addresses and may further make reference to other aliases. In this manner a complex hierarchy of aliases can be established.
With e-biz coming of age and the internet usage increasing in exponential proportion there is a severe need to supplement e-mail tools with powerful facilities so as to enable optimal utilization of internet bandwidth with ease of use. E-mail usage is also likely to increase exponentially. While all efforts are being made to develop and provide appropriate internet infrastructure, concerted efforts are needed to optimize e-mail usage and there is a dire need to improve the current facilities. For example, existing email systems do not provide any means to selectively alter lists of recipients as needed. This results in the user having to either manually enter a large number of recipient aliases and/or email addresses or alternatively the email is transmitted to everyone in the list resulting in wasted bandwidth and confusion.
The existing email systems have following limitations:
Absence of Ability to Deny Mail to One or More Sub-aliases or E-mail Addresses which are Already Listed in One or More Identified Mailing Lists
Consider a situation for example:
To: Alias
1
Cc: Alias
2
Bcc: Alias
3
Group: Alias
4
Where “Group” refers to groups of recipients, such as newsgroups.
Let Alias
1
consist of Alias
11
, Alias
12
, . . . Alias
1
n
Let Alias
2
consist of Alias
21
, Alias
22
, . . . Alias
2
n
Let Alias
3
consist of Alias
31
, Alias
32
, . . . Alias
3
n
Let Alias
4
consist of Alias
41
, Alias
42
, . . . Alias
4
n
If one were to send a mail that were to be denied to say: Alias
12
, Alias
22
, Alias
31
and Alias
42
and u1@d1.com which is listed under Alias
11
and u2@d2.com which is listed under Alias
12
there is no way one can do that with the existing e-mail features without expanding all the aliases and removing the e-mail addresses that need to be denied.
Absence of Nested Inclusion and Exclusion of Aliases
Consider the a situation where an alias is structured as follows:
Alias
1
-Alias
11
, Alias
12
, . . . Alias
1
n
Alias
11
-Alias
111
, Alias
112
, . . . Alias
11
n
Alias(
1
. . .
1
ntimes)-Alias(
1
. . .
1
ntimes)
1
, Alias(
1
. . .
1
ntimes)
2
. . . Alias(
1
. . .
1
ntimes)n
:
:
If one were to send mail such that it includes Alias
1
but excludes Alias
11
and includes Alias
111
but excludes Aliass
1111
but includes Alias
11111
and excludes Alias
111111
then it is not possible to ensure this in a simple fashion using existing mail features.
U.S. Pat. No. 5,864,684 describes an invention for enabling a user to exclude himself from subscription to a mailing list either temporarily or permanently. In other words, this patent implements subscription and unsubscription to automatic mailing lists. This patent does not address the problem of selective transmission of an email message to a number of recipients.
THE OBJECTS AND SUMMARY OF THE INVENTION
The object of this invention is therefore to introduce a feature in email software to provide the ability to deny mail to one or more sub-aliases or e-mail addresses already listed in one or more identified mailing lists.
The second object of the invention is to provide a facility for nested inclusion and exclusion of aliases.
To achieve said objectives, this invention provides in a computing system, a method for transmitting e-mail (electronic mail) to a plurality of recipients identified by one or more aliases in identified list or lists of recipients, characterized in that said method includes selectively enabling or denying the transmission of email to identified recipients or groups of recipients in any of said aliases, comprising the steps of:
providing transmission control directives by the user,
parsing said transmission control directives to identify transmission requirements,
expanding aliases mentioned in any of said transmission control directives wherever necessary using stored lists of alias definition,
applying each said parsed transmission control directive on said aliases in said identified list or lists of recipients so as to exclude or include a recipient or a group of recipients in said identified list or lists.
One or more of said aliases are nested aliases that contain one or more aliases within them.
The recipients are included or excluded from said identified list or lists based on the order in which the inclusion or exclusion is defined.
The said identified list or lists include lists for sending copies and/or sending blind copies and lists for groups.
The said transmission control directives are by means of exclusion strings, “Deny-To”, “Deny-Cc”, “Deny-Bcc”, “Deny-Group” and “Deny-Attachment”, wherein define recipients that are to be excluded from the identified, “To:”, “Cc:”, “Bcc:” and “Group:” lists respectively while “Deny attachment” identifies recipients that are excluded from receiving attachments.
The said transmission control directives are by means of exclu
Coca T. Rao
England Anthony V.S.
International Business Machines - Corporation
Luu Le Hien
Nguyen Quang
LandOfFree
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