EMAIL SYSTEM INCLUDING AN EMAIL AGGREGATION SERVER PROVIDING DISTRIBUTED POLLING AND RELATED METHODS

• US 20080256198A1
• Filed: 04/13/2007
• Published: 10/16/2008
• Est. Priority Date: 04/13/2007
• Status: Active Grant

• Current Assignee: Malikie Innovations Limited (Key Patent Innovations Limited)
• Original Assignee: TeamOn Systems Incorporated (Blackberry Limited)
• Inventors: KAMAT, Harshad N.
• Granted Patent: US 8,510,390 B2
• Time in Patent Office: Days
• US Class Current: 709/206
• 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 51/58 Message adaptation for wireless communication

Abstract

An email system may include at least one email server having mailboxes for storing email messages therein, and a plurality of mobile wireless communications devices. The system may further include at least one email aggregation server for polling the mailboxes for email messages, and forwarding the email messages to respective mobile wireless communications devices. The at least one email aggregation server may divide each of a plurality of repeating polling time intervals into a plurality of subintervals, and schedule each mailbox for at least a first type polling over each subinterval and for a second type polling over each polling time interval. The second type polling may be more comprehensive than the first type polling. The at least one email aggregation server may distribute the second type polling of the mailboxes over each polling time interval.

Claims

1. An electronic mail (email) system comprising:

at least one email server having mailboxes for storing email messages therein;

a plurality of mobile wireless communications devices; and

at least one email aggregation server for polling the mailboxes for email messages, and forwarding the email messages to respective mobile wireless communications devices;

said at least one email aggregation server dividing each of a plurality of repeating polling time intervals into a plurality of subintervals, and scheduling each mailbox for at least a first type polling over each subinterval and for a second type polling over each polling time interval, the second type polling being more comprehensive than the first type polling;

said at least one email aggregation server distributing the second type polling of the mailboxes over each polling time interval.

2. The email system of claim 1 wherein said at least one email aggregation server uniformly distributes the second type polling of the mailboxes among the subintervals.

3. The email system of claim 1 wherein the first type polling comprises an abbreviated polling for new emails;

and wherein the second type polling comprises a reconciliation polling of all emails.

4. The email system of claim 1 wherein each mailbox has a unique identifier (UID) associated therewith;

and wherein said at least one email aggregation server distributes polling based upon the UIDs.

5. The email system of claim 4 wherein said at least one email aggregation server further distributes polling of the mailboxes among the subintervals based upon a modulus of the UIDs by a total number of the polling time subintervals.

6. The email system of claim 1 wherein said at least one email server comprises at least one unsubscribed mailbox server not sending a new email indication upon receiving a new email message.

7. The email system of claim 6 further comprising at least one subscribed mailbox server having a plurality of subscribed mailboxes and sending new email indications upon receiving new email messages for the subscribed mailboxes;

and wherein said at least one email aggregation server polls mailboxes based upon receiving a new email indication therefor.

8. The email system of claim 1 wherein each polling time interval has a duration in a range of 30 minutes to 180 minutes.

9. The email system of claim 1 wherein each subinterval has a duration in a range of 5 to 60 minutes.

10. The email system of claim 1 wherein at least some of said mobile wireless communications devices comprise cellular communications devices.

11. An electronic mail (email) system comprising:

at least one email server having mailboxes for storing email messages therein;

a plurality of mobile wireless communications devices; and

at least one email aggregation server for polling the mailboxes for email messages, and forwarding the email messages to respective mobile wireless communications devices;

said at least one email aggregation server dividing each of a plurality of repeating polling time intervals into a plurality of subintervals, and scheduling each mailbox for at least a first type polling over each subinterval and for a second type polling over each polling time interval, the second type polling comprising an abbreviated polling for new emails and the first type polling comprising a reconciliation polling of all emails;

said at least one email aggregation server uniformly distributing the second type polling of the mailboxes over each polling time interval.

12. The email system of claim 11 wherein each mailbox has a unique identifier (UID) associated therewith;

and wherein said at least one email aggregation server distributes polling based upon the UIDs.

13. The email system of claim 11 wherein said at least one email server comprises at least one unsubscribed mailbox server not sending a new email indication upon receiving a new email message.

14. The email system of claim 13 further comprising at least one subscribed mailbox server having a plurality of subscribed mailboxes and sending new email indications upon receiving new email messages for the subscribed mailboxes;

and wherein said at least one email aggregation server polls mailboxes based upon receiving a new email indication therefor.

15. An electronic mail (email) aggregation server comprising:

an aggregation module for polling mailboxes on at least one email server for email messages stored therein, and forwarding the email messages to respective mobile wireless communications devices; and

a scheduling module for dividing each of a plurality of repeating polling time intervals into a plurality of subintervals, and scheduling each mailbox for at least a first type polling over each subinterval and for a second type polling over each polling time interval, the second type polling being more comprehensive than the first type polling;

the scheduling module distributing the second type polling of the mailboxes over each polling time interval.

16. The email aggregation server of claim 15 wherein said scheduling module uniformly distributes the second type polling of the mailboxes among the subintervals.

17. The email aggregation server of claim 15 wherein the first type polling comprises an abbreviated polling for new emails;

and wherein the second type polling comprises a reconciliation polling of all emails.

18. The email aggregation server of claim 15 wherein each mailbox has a unique identifier (UID) associated therewith;

and wherein said scheduling module distributes polling based upon the UIDs.

19. An electronic mail (email) aggregation method for aggregating email messages from mailboxes on at least one email server to respective mobile wireless communications devices, the method comprising:

dividing each of a plurality of repeating polling time intervals into a plurality of subintervals;

scheduling each mailbox for at least a first type polling over each subinterval;

scheduling each mailbox for a second type polling over each polling time interval and distributing the second type polling of the mailboxes over each polling time interval, the second type polling being more comprehensive than the first type polling;

polling the mailboxes for email messages based upon the scheduled first and second type pollings; and

forwarding the email messages to respective mobile wireless communications devices.

20. The method of claim 19 wherein distributing comprises uniformly distributing the second type polling of the mailboxes among the subintervals.

21. The method of claim 19 wherein the first type polling comprises an abbreviated polling for new emails;

and wherein the second type polling comprises a reconciliation polling of all emails.

22. The method of claim 19 wherein each mailbox has a unique identifier (UID) associated therewith;

and wherein distributing comprises distributing based upon the UIDs.