High volume electronic mail processing systems and methods having remote transmission capability
First Claim
1. A method for transmitting an electronic mail (email) messages comprising the steps of:
- providing a plurality of email addresses;
transmitting separate sub sets of the plurality of email addresses to a plurality of mail transfer agents (MTAs) wherein the MTAs can be geographically distant from a source of the subset transmission; and
transmitting the email message with the MTAs to addresses contained in the subsets.
2 Assignments
0 Petitions
Accused Products
Abstract
High volume electronic mail messaging transfer systems and methods employ several groups of servers in order to more efficiently handle processing and transmission of messages to large numbers of recipients. A first group of servers designated as the A servers in the preferred exemplary embodiment provide storage for databases containing various electronic mail lists. These servers also preferably contain the majority of software which is used in manipulation and processing of messages for transmission to the recipients identified on the lists. A second class or group of servers referred to as the B servers is preferably employed under the control of the A servers. It is the B servers which actually perform mass delivery of the electronic mail messages. In a further preferred exemplary embodiment, yet another group of servers known as the C servers is used to collect bounced electronic mail messages and to provide this information to the A servers.
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Citations
45 Claims
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1. A method for transmitting an electronic mail (email) messages comprising the steps of:
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providing a plurality of email addresses;
transmitting separate sub sets of the plurality of email addresses to a plurality of mail transfer agents (MTAs) wherein the MTAs can be geographically distant from a source of the subset transmission; and
transmitting the email message with the MTAs to addresses contained in the subsets. - View Dependent Claims (2, 3, 4, 5, 6, 7, 8, 9, 10)
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11. A method for transmitting an electronic mail (email) message to a plurality of email addresses, comprising:
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partitioning the plurality of email addresses into subsets based on predefined criteria;
allocating mail transmission resources on a plurality of mail transfer agents (MTAs);
distributing the subsets to the plurality of MTAs wherein each subset is distributed to at most one MTA; and
transmitting the email message with the MTAs to addresses contained in the subsets. - View Dependent Claims (12, 13, 14, 15, 16, 17, 18, 19, 20)
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21. A system comprising:
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means for generating a plurality of email addresses;
means for transmitting separate subsets of the plurality of email addresses to a plurality of mail transfer agents (MTAs), wherein the plurality of MTAs can be physically distant from a source of the subset transmission; and
means for transmitting an email message with the MTAs to addresses contained in the subsets.
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22. A system for delivering an electronic mail (email) message to a set of email addresses, comprising:
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a message sender process operable to manage mail delivery;
at least one mail transfer agent (MTA) process operable to deliver email;
a return process operable to accept bounced mail;
an inbound process operable to handle requests; and
wherein the processes can execute on one or more computing devices connected by a computer network. - View Dependent Claims (23, 24, 25, 26, 27, 28, 29, 30, 31, 32, 33, 34)
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35. A machine readable medium having instructions stored thereon that when executed by a processor cause a system to:
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partition a plurality of email addresses into subsets based on predefined criteria;
allocate mail transmission resources on a plurality of mail transfer agents (MTAs);
distribute the subsets to the MTAs wherein each subset is distributed to at most one MTA; and
transmit the email message with the MTAs to addresses contained in the subsets. - View Dependent Claims (36, 37, 38, 39, 40, 41, 42, 43, 44)
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45. A computer data signal embodied in a transmission medium, comprising:
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a code segment including instructions to partition a plurality of email addresses into subsets based on predefined criteria;
a code segment including instructions to allocate mail transmission resources on a plurality of mail transfer agents (MTAs);
a code segment including instructions to distribute the subsets to the plurality of MTAs wherein each subset is distributed to at most one MTA; and
a code segment including instructions to transmit the email message with the MTAs to addresses contained in the subsets.
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Specification