Email emotiflags

• US 20060282503A1
• Filed: 06/14/2005
• Published: 12/14/2006
• Est. Priority Date: 06/14/2005
• Status: Active Grant

• Current Assignee: Microsoft Technology Licensing LLC (Microsoft Corporation)
• Original Assignee: Microsoft Corporation
• Inventors: Gwozdz, Daniel
• Granted Patent: US 7,565,404 B2
• Time in Patent Office: Days
• US Class Current: 709/206
• CPC Class Codes: G06Q 10/107 Computer-aided management of electronic mailing [e-mailing]

Abstract

Email emotiflags are described. A collection of emotiflags, each including a graphical icon and a text tag is maintained. Custom emotiflags may be defined by a user. While composing an email message, a user may associate an emotiflag with the email message such that when the email message is sent, the emotiflag is sent with the email message. Email messages may be received that include emotiflags. New emotiflags may be saved from a received email message for later association with other email messages. Email messages may be filtered, sorted, or otherwise processed based on associated emotiflags.

Claims

1. An email application comprising:

means for receiving an email message having an associated emotiflag specified by the composer of the email message to indicate an emotion the composer intends to be associated with the email message as a whole; and

means for rendering a representation of the received email message such that a graphical icon and a text tag associated with the emotiflag are rendered as part of the representation.

2. The system as recited in claim 1, further comprising means for rendering a textual representation of the graphical icon in place of the graphical icon.

3. The system as recited in claim 1, further comprising means for maintaining the emotiflag associated with the received email message such that a recipient of the email message may later associate the emotiflag with another email message.

4. The system as recited in claim 1, further comprising means for maintaining a plurality of emotiflags, each of which may be associated with an email message to indicate a feeling to be associated with the email message as a whole.

5. The system as recited in claim 4, further comprising means for enabling user-customization of at least one of a graphical icon, a textual representation of a graphical icon, or a text tag, associated with at least one of the plurality of emotiflags.

6. The system as recited in claim 1, further comprising:

means for identifying a user-selected graphical icon;

means for identifying a user-submitted text tag; and

means for generating a custom emotiflag comprising the user-selected graphical icon and the user-submitted text tag such that the custom emotiflag can be associated with an email message.

7. The system as recited in claim 1, further comprising means for associating a user-selected emotiflag having a graphical icon and a text tag with a received email message.

8. The system as recited in claim 1, further comprising:

means for receiving an indication of a user-selected emotiflag; and

means for filtering email messages based on the user-selected emotiflag.

9. The system as recited in claim 1, further comprising rendering a list of email meesages wherein the list is grouped based on emotiflags associated with the email messages.

10. A method comprising:

associating an emotiflag with an email message to indicate a composer-selected emotion to be associated with the email message as a whole, the emotiflag comprising an emoticon and a text tag; and

sending the associated emotiflag with the email message.

11. The method as recited in claim 10, wherein the associating comprises adding the emoticon and the text tag to a header associated with the email message.

12. The method as recited in claim 11, wherein adding the emoticon to the header associated with the email message comprises adding a file containing the emoticon to the email message as an attachment.

13. The method as recited in claim 11, further comprising adding a textual representation of the emoticon to the header associated with the email message.

14. One or more computer-readable media comprising computer-readable instructions which, when executed, cause a computer system to:

identify a user-selected graphical icon that represents an emotion, feeling, or sentiment;

identify a user-submitted text tag to be associated with the graphical icon;

definine an emotiflag that comprises an association between the graphical icon and the text tag; and

maintain the emotiflag such that the emotiflag can be selected by a user for association with an email message.

15. The one or more computer-readable media as recited in claim 14, further comprising computer-readable instructions which, when executed, cause the computer system to:

associate the emotiflag with an email message; and

send the email message, such that the emotiflag is sent with the email message.

16. The one or more computer-readable media as recited in claim 14, further comprising computer-readable instructions which, when executed, cause the computer system to associate the emotiflag with a received email message.

17. The one or more computer-readable media as recited in claim 15, further comprising computer-readable instructions which, when executed, cause the computer system to associate the emotiflag with the email message by:

adding the text tag to header data associated with the email message; and

adding a file containing the graphical icon as an attachment to the email message.

18. The one or more computer-readable media as recited in claim 14, further comprising computer-readable instructions which, when executed, cause the computer system to:

receive an email message having an associated emotiflag that indicates a sentiment associated with the email message as a whole;

identify an graphical icon and a text tag associated with the emotiflag; and

maintain the graphical icon and text tag as a custom emotiflag such that the custom emotiflag can be later selected by a recipient of the email message for association with another email message.

19. The one or more computer-readable media as recited in claim 14, further comprising computer-readable instructions which, when executed, cause the computer system to:

maintain a plurality of email messages;

receive a user-selection of an emotiflag; and

filter the plurality of email messages based on the emotiflag, returning only those email messages with which the selected emotiflag is associated.

20. The one or more computer-readable media as recited in claim 14, further comprising computer-readable instructions which, when executed, cause the computer system to:

maintain a plurality of email messages; and

render a list of the plurality of email message such email messages in the list are grouped based on emotiflags associated with the email messages.