ELECTRONIC MAIL SYSTEM WITH PRE-MESSAGE-RETRIEVAL DISPLAY OF MESSAGE METADATA

• US 20070005716A1
• Filed: 06/30/2006
• Published: 01/04/2007
• Est. Priority Date: 07/01/2005
• Status: Active Grant

• Current Assignee: Appriver Canada, ULC (Open Text Corporation)
• Original Assignee: Email2 SCP Solutions Inc.
• Inventors: Astudillo, Esteban, McLean, Matt, LeVasseur, Thierry, Rasmussen, Jeremy, Houg, Derek, Chen, Kung
• Granted Patent: US 7,870,205 B2
• Time in Patent Office: Days
• US Class Current: 709/206
• CPC Class Codes: G06F 21/60 Protecting data
• CPC Class Codes: G06F 21/602 Providing cryptographic facilities or services
• CPC Class Codes: G06Q 10/107 Computer-aided management of electronic mailing [e-mailing]
• CPC Class Codes: H04L 2209/56 Financial cryptography, e.g. electronic payment or e-cash
• CPC Class Codes: H04L 2209/60 Digital content management, e.g. content distribution
• CPC Class Codes: H04L 2209/68 Special signature format, e.g. XML format
• CPC Class Codes: H04L 2209/80 Wireless network architectures or network communication protocols for wireless network security H04W12/00
• CPC Class Codes: H04L 51/00 User-to-user messaging in packet-switching networks, transmitted according to store-and-forward or real-time protocols, e.g. e-mail
• CPC Class Codes: H04L 51/02 using automatic reactions or user delegation, e.g. automatic replies or chatbot-generated messages
• CPC Class Codes: H04L 51/18 Commands or executable codes
• CPC Class Codes: H04L 51/212 using filtering or selective blocking
• CPC Class Codes: H04L 51/214 using selective forwarding
• CPC Class Codes: H04L 51/234 for tracking messages
• CPC Class Codes: H04L 51/42 Mailbox-related aspects, e.g. synchronisation of mailboxes
• CPC Class Codes: H04L 51/56 Unified messaging, e.g. interactions between e-mail, instant messaging or converged IP messaging [CPM]
• CPC Class Codes: H04L 63/0428 wherein the data content is protected, e.g. by encrypting or encapsulating the payload
• CPC Class Codes: H04L 63/08 for authentication of entities cryptographic mechanisms or cryptographic arrangements for entity authentication H04L9/32
• CPC Class Codes: H04L 63/12 Applying verification of the received information cryptographic mechanisms or cryptographic arrangements for data integrity or data verification H04L9/32
• CPC Class Codes: H04L 63/123 received data contents, e.g. message integrity
• CPC Class Codes: H04L 63/126 the source of the received data
• CPC Class Codes: H04L 63/145 : the attack involving the propagation of malware through the network, e.g. viruses, trojans or worms
• CPC Class Codes: H04L 63/168 : above the transport layer
• CPC Class Codes: H04L 63/306 : intercepting packet switched data communications, e.g. Web, Internet or IMS communications
• CPC Class Codes: H04L 67/02 : based on web technology, e.g. hypertext transfer protocol [HTTP]
• CPC Class Codes: H04L 9/3213 : using tickets or tokens, e.g. Kerberos network architectures or network communication protocols for entities authentication using tickets in a packet data network H04L63/0807
• CPC Class Codes: H04L 9/3247 : involving digital signatures
• CPC Class Codes: H04L 9/3263 : involving certificates, e.g. public key certificate [PKC] or attribute certificate [AC]; Public key infrastructure [PKI] arrangements network architectures or network communication protocols for supporting authentication of entities using certificates in a packet data network H04L63/0823

Abstract

An e-mail system is disclosed that overcomes many deficiencies of, but is backward compatible with, existing e-mail systems. Embodiments of the system may include various features, including but not limited to: (1) secure transfer of e-mail messages, without the need for users to replace existing e-mail clients or to change e-mail addresses; (2) tracking of all actions performed in connection with an e-mail transmission; (3) the ability for a recipient to view information about an e-mail message, optionally including information about how other addressees have responded to it, before deciding whether to retrieve the e-mail message; (4) the aggregation of entire e-mail conversations into a single threaded view; (5) the ability to include both private and public messages in a single e-mail communication; (6) sender control over downstream actions performed in connection with an e-mail message; (7) flexible control over cryptographic methods used to encrypt emails messages for storage.

Claims

1. A method of collaboratively filtering e-mail messages, comprising:

receiving, at a server system, an e-mail message addressed to a plurality of recipients;

sending notification messages to each of the recipients regarding the e-mail message, the notification messages including information for retrieving the e-mail message from the server system;

monitoring actions performed by at least some of the recipients in connection with the e-mail message, and based on said actions, generating dynamic metadata for the e-mail message; and

communicating the dynamic metadata to a recipient that has not yet retrieved the e-mail message to assist said recipient in determining whether to retrieve the e-mail message.

2. The method of claim 1, wherein the dynamic metadata reflects how other recipients have rated the e-mail message.

3. The method of claim 1, wherein the dynamic metadata indicates at least one of the following:

(1) how many of the recipients have retrieved the e-mail message, (2) how many of the recipients have explicitly declined to retrieve the e-mail message.

4. The method of claim 1, wherein the dynamic metadata indicates how many of the recipients have replied to the e-mail message.

5. The method of claim 1, wherein the dynamic metadata indicates how many of the recipients have forwarded the e-mail message.

6. The method of claim 1, wherein the notification messages are sent via an account of a sender of the e-mail message, such that the notification messages appear to the recipients to come from the sender.

7. The method of claim 1, further comprising encrypting the e-mail message on the server system in response to receipt thereof, and storing the encrypted e-mail message on the server system.

8. The method of claim 1, further comprising communicating the e-mail message via the server system to at least some of the recipients without using a store-and-forward model.

9. An email system that operates according to the method of claim 1.

10. A computer-implemented method of securely transferring an e-mail message addressed to at least one recipient, the method comprising:

sending the e-mail message from a sender computing device to a server system for storage on the server system;

sending a notification message to an e-mail address of the recipient, said notification message including a message key associated with the e-mail message, and lacking at least some message content of the e-mail message;

on a recipient computing device, prior to retrieving the e-mail message, using the message key as obtained from the notification message to retrieve, from the server system, e-mail message metadata associated with the e-mail message; and

displaying the e-mail message metadata on the recipient computing device to assist the recipient in determining whether to retrieve the e-mail message from the server system.

11. The method of claim 10, further comprising encrypting the e-mail message on the sender computing device, such that the e-mail message is sent from the sender computing device to the server system in an encrypted form.

12. The method of claim 10, where the step of using the message key to retrieve the e-mail message metadata comprises using an HTTPS protocol to retrieve the e-mail message metadata.

13. The method of claim 10, wherein the e-mail message metadata includes information about how one or more other recipients of the e-mail message have rated the e-mail message.

14. The method of claim 10, wherein the e-mail message metadata indicates how many other addressees of the e-mail message have retrieved the e-mail message.

15. The method of claim 10, wherein the e-mail message metadata indicates how many other addressees of the e-mail message have replied to the e-mail message.

16. The method of claim 10, wherein the e-mail message metadata includes a result of at least one virus scan of the e-mail message.

17. The method of claim 10, wherein the e-mail message metadata includes a result of at least one virus scan performed by a recipient computing device of another recipient of the e-mail message.

18. The method of claim 10, further comprising presenting an option on the recipient computing device for the recipient to retrieve updated e-mail message metadata for the e-mail message, such that the recipient can retrieve and view new metadata that becomes available.

19. The method of claim 10, wherein the step of sending the e-mail message to the server system is performed by an e-mail client-plug in that runs on the sender computing device, said e-mail client plug-in configured to intercept the e-mail message as the e-mail message is sent via an e-mail client program.

20. The method of claim 19, further comprising blocking, via the e-mail client plug-in, an ordinary transmission of the e-mail message from the sender computing device.

21. The method of claim 10, wherein the steps of retrieving the e-mail message metadata and presenting the e-mail message metadata to the sender are performed via execution, by the recipient computing device, of an e-mail client plug-in that augments functionality of an e-mail client.

22. The method of claim 10, wherein the steps of retrieving the e-mail message metadata and presenting the e-mail message metadata to a user are performed via a web-based e-mail interface.

23. The method of claim 10, further comprising storing reply messages from a plurality of recipients of the e-mail message on the server system, and automatically combining the plurality of reply messages into a single logical e-mail message for presentation.

24. The method of claim 10, wherein the server system verifies access rights of the recipient computing device prior to sending the e-mail message metadata to the recipient computing device.

25. The method of claim 10, further comprising communicating the e-mail message from the sender computing device to the recipient computing device via the server system without using a store-and-forward model.