Method of enabling transmission and reception of communication when current destination for recipient is unknown to sender
First Claim
1. A method of indirectly forwarding a communication from a sender to a recipient where an old address for the recipient is known or believed to be temporarily or permanently invalid, by sending the communication to a forwarding service at an address different from that of the recipient, comprising, at the forwarding service, the steps of:
- a) receiving the communication;
b) looking up at least the old address in a database;
c) retrieving at least one second address from the database, which second address is associated with the old address;
d) sending the communication to the second address.
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Accused Products
Abstract
A method for forwarding of communications from a sender to a recipient through a separate forwarding server, using an address which is known or believed to be temporarily or permanently invalid to communicate with the recipient through a medium, including media other than that in which the address was formerly (but is not currently) valid. The invention enables and facilitates the transmission and reception of communications when the current destination of a communication to an intended recipient (e.g. street address, telephone number, e-mail address) is unknown to the sender, but a previous destination or other group or personal old address, now not currently active, is known. This method may be applied to electronic mail, telephony, postal mail, and other types of communications that require an addressed destination for the communication to be received.
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Citations
67 Claims
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1. A method of indirectly forwarding a communication from a sender to a recipient where an old address for the recipient is known or believed to be temporarily or permanently invalid, by sending the communication to a forwarding service at an address different from that of the recipient, comprising, at the forwarding service, the steps of:
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a) receiving the communication;
b) looking up at least the old address in a database;
c) retrieving at least one second address from the database, which second address is associated with the old address;
d) sending the communication to the second address. - View Dependent Claims (2, 3, 4, 5, 6, 7, 8, 9, 10, 11, 12, 13, 14, 15, 16, 17, 18, 19, 20, 21, 22, 23, 24, 25, 26, 27, 28, 29, 30, 31, 32)
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- 33. A method of sending a communication to a recipient when an old address for the recipient is known or believed to be temporarily or permanently invalid, comprising the step of sending the communication to a forwarding service at an address different from that of the recipient.
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66. A method of forwarding communications from a sender to a recipient over a network where the recipient has an address which is dynamically assigned, comprising the steps of:
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a) maintaining a database having a plurality of entries, each entry representing a session during which the recipient was connected and storing at least the address dynamically assigned while the recipient was connected and the time during which the recipient was connected using that address;
b) when a recipient connects, creating an entry in the database and linking the currently assigned address to an entry in the database for a previous connection;
c) accepting a forwarding request from a sender, comprising at least an address and a time representing a previous connection associated with the recipient;
d) using the address and time from step c, finding the entry in the database which represents the previous connection;
e) returning the currently assigned address for the recipient which was linked to the entry found in step d. - View Dependent Claims (67)
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Specification