Apparatus, Method and Program Product for Limiting Distribution of E-Mail

• US 20070294353A1
• Filed: 06/14/2006
• Published: 12/20/2007
• Est. Priority Date: 06/14/2006
• Status: Abandoned Application

• Current Assignee: International Business Machines Corporation
• Original Assignee: International Business Machines Corporation
• Inventors: Marks, Laurence Victor, Miller, Wesley Joseph
• Application Number:
  US11/423,987
• Publication Number:
  US 20070294353A1
• 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

An e-mail software program is provided with an exclusionary function which removes the name of a sender from a list including the sender before forwarding a message received from the sender to others on the list. On receiving an e-mail message, the name of the sender is saved and subsequently deleted from the list of recipients to which the message is forwarded. The function is invoked by activating a button provided in the graphical user interface (GUI) of a recipient computer.

Claims

1. A method of exchanging messages in a computer network comprising:

receiving an e-mail which includes an address;

automatically saving said address from the e-mail;

providing a list of e-mail addresses to which received e-mail is to be forwarded;

correlating the address from the e-mail with the list of e-mail addresses; and

deleting said address if found in said list of e-mail addresses.

2. The method of claim 1 further including forwarding the e-mail to addresses remaining in said list.

3. The method of claim 1 wherein the automatic saving of the address includes activating a button provided in a Graphical User Interface (GUI) of a recipient computer.

4. The method of claim 1 wherein saved e-mail address includes that of the sender of said e-mail.

5. The method of claim 4 wherein automatically saving of the e-mail address includes activating a button provided in a GUI of a computer receiving said e-mail.

6. The method of claim 5 wherein the button is activated by intercepting it with a cursor or other electronic pointer.

7. A program product for distributing e-mail messages in a computer network including a computer readable medium in which a computer program is recorded, said computer program including instruction set, responsive to selection of a predefined button, to extract and save an e-mail address of a sender of an e-mail message;

instruction set which removes the e-mail address of the sender from a list of e-mail addresses; and

instruction set which sends the e-mail message to e-mail addresses remaining in the list.

8. The program product of claim 7 wherein the list is included in an address book residing on a computer receiving said message.

9. The program product of claim 8 further including instruction set which correlates the e-mail address of the sender to identify all incidence of said e-mail address of said sender in said address book;

and

instruction set which deletes from said list all incidence of sender address so determined.

10. Apparatus for distributing e-mail messages in a computer network comprising;

a computer which receives the e-mail message operatively coupled to the network;

a predefined button provided in a GUI of said computer, said button causing predefined information to be extracted from the e-mail message;

a memory in which the predefined information is stored; and

a computer program residing on said computer and operable to remove the predefined information from a list.

11. The apparatus of claim 10 wherein the predefined information includes an e-mail address for sender of said e-mail.

12. The apparatus of claim 10 wherein the list includes e-mail addresses.

13. A method comprising:

receiving in a computer an e-mail including a name of a sender;

generating and appending a panel to the e-mail, said panel including at least one field to accommodate routing information;

inserting a group name in said at least one field;

correlating the name of the sender with a list of names associated with the group name;

excluding from the list of names any names matching the name of the sender; and

determining an e-mail address for each entry in a remain list of names.

14. The method of claim 13 wherein the panel is generated by activating a forward button provided in a GUI of the computer.

15. The method of claim 13 further including sending the e-mail to entries in the remaining list of names.