Electrical computers and digital processing systems: multicomput – Computer conferencing – Demand based messaging
Reexamination Certificate
2000-06-07
2004-08-10
El-Hady, Nabil (Department: 2154)
Electrical computers and digital processing systems: multicomput
Computer conferencing
Demand based messaging
C709S204000, C709S205000, C709S207000, C709S232000, C709S246000
Reexamination Certificate
active
06775689
ABSTRACT:
FIELD OF THE INVENTION
This invention relates to a system for restructuring selected parts of email messages prior to transmission to plurality of recipients. More particularly, this invention relates to a system for reordering, merging selected parts of email messages, the actions being performed individually or collectively to structure the email in a desired manner prior to transmitting to a plurality 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 facilities for selective transmission or receiving of email. 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.
Our co-pending application Ser. No. 09/589,140, filed Jun. 7, 2000, System for Directing E-mail to Selected Recipients, addresses the problem mentioned above by providing a solution for transmitting email to selected recipients. The 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.
However, there is still a need to provide other facilities, such as,
the ability to send selected parts of email contents to selected recipients,
the ability to reorder email contents prior to transmitting to selected recipients,
the ability to merge email segments received from a plurality of senders prior to replying
THE OBJECT AND SUMMARY OF THE INVENTION
The object of this invention is therefore to introduce a feature in email software to provide the ability to send selected parts of email contents to selected recipients.
The second object of the invention is to provide a facility for reordering email contents prior to transmitting to selected recipients.
Further objective of the invention is to provide the ability to merge selected email segments received from a plurality of senders prior to replying and transmitting to selected recipients.
To achieve said objectives, this invention provides in a computing system, a method for restructuring email messages by transmitting selected parts of the message to a plurality of recipients, characterized in that said method comprising the steps of:
identifying selected email contents by means of segment identifiers,
identifying recipients for each of the said selected email contents by means of segment recipient lists,
providing transmission control directives for directing the email system to send the selected email contents to the selected recipients in the said recipients lists,
parsing said transmission control directives and transmitting the said identified email content segment to recipients in said segment recipient lists,
creating an output email message containing identified segments for each recipients, in accordance with rules based on implementation requirements.
The said recipients are identified by one or more aliases.
The directives for sending the messages to selected recipients include directives for excluding or including recipients from one or more aliases.
This invention further provides in a computing system, a method for restructuring email messages by reordering selected parts of the email message prior to transmitting to a plurality of recipients, characterized in that said method comprising the steps of:
identifying selected email contents by means of segment identifiers,
identifying recipients for selected email contents arranged in defined order by means of segment recipient lists containing segment ordering lists for each identified recipient or group of recipients,
providing transmission control directives for directing the email system to send the selected email contents to the selected recipients in the said recipients lists, after reordering the email segments in the segment order defined for each recipient or group of recipients,
parsing said transmission control directives and arranging the said identified email contents in the order given by the said segment ordering lists and transmitting the said ordered segments to the recipients in said segment recipient lists,
creating
Cora T. Rao
El-Hady Nabil
England Anthony V S
International Business Machines - Corporation
Schecter Manny
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