Method of and system for management of electronic mail
First Claim
1. A method of managing electronic messages comprising the steps of:
- receiving incoming electronic messages;
storing said incoming electronic messages on a centralized data storage device before or while said incoming electronic messages are being delivered to an existing electronic mail system;
delivering said incoming electronic messages to said existing electronic mail system; and
in response to a replay request from an End User, replaying selected ones of said stored electronic messages to said End User, by re-delivering said selected ones of said stored electronic messages, via said existing electronic mail system.
2 Assignments
0 Petitions
Accused Products
Abstract
The present invention relates to electronic communication systems, and more specifically, to a method of and system for management of electronic mail or e-mail. E-mail use has become pervasive in western industry, and it is necessary to provide an efficient system and method for archiving the vast number of e-mail messages that are received in business environments. The invention intercepts messages before they arrive in the corporate e-mail system, using an e-mail gateway. E-mail is stored as a flat-file in a central storage device and tools are provided to allow searching, previewing, replaying or re-delivering, replying, forwarding and re-delivery of those stored messages. The replaying, replying, forwarding and re-delivery tools all employ the User'"'"'s existing message delivery system.
99 Citations
22 Claims
-
1. A method of managing electronic messages comprising the steps of:
-
receiving incoming electronic messages;
storing said incoming electronic messages on a centralized data storage device before or while said incoming electronic messages are being delivered to an existing electronic mail system;
delivering said incoming electronic messages to said existing electronic mail system; and
in response to a replay request from an End User, replaying selected ones of said stored electronic messages to said End User, by re-delivering said selected ones of said stored electronic messages, via said existing electronic mail system. - View Dependent Claims (2, 3, 4, 5, 6, 8, 9, 10, 11, 12)
-
-
13. A network appliance comprising:
-
means for receiving incoming electronic messages;
means for storing said incoming electronic messages on a centralized data storage device before or while said incoming electronic messages are being delivered to an existing electronic mail system;
means for delivering said incoming electronic messages to said existing electronic mail system; and
means responsive to a replay request from an End User, by replaying selected ones of said stored electronic messages to said End User, re-delivering said selected ones of said stored electronic messages, via said existing electronic mail system. - View Dependent Claims (14, 15, 16, 17, 18, 19)
-
-
20. A system for managing messages comprising:
-
a communication network;
a network appliance;
a data storage device;
a message server;
a User-interface device;
said network appliance being connected to said communication network, said data storage device and said message server;
said message server being connected to said User-interface device;
said network appliance being operable to;
receive incoming electronic messages;
store said incoming electronic messages on a centralized data storage device before or while said incoming electronic messages are being delivered to an existing electronic mail system;
deliver said incoming electronic messages to said existing electronic mail system; and
in response to a replay request from an End User, replay selected ones of said stored electronic messages to said End User, by re-delivering said selected ones of said stored electronic messages, via said existing electronic mail system; and
said message server being operable to route incoming electronic messages to said User-interface device. - View Dependent Claims (21, 22)
-
Specification