MODELING CONVERSATIONS IN ELECTRONIC MAIL SYSTEMS
First Claim
1. A method to be executed at least in part in a computing device for providing email communications employing conversation modeling, the method comprising:
- receiving a new message;
determining a conversation property of the received message;
determining whether the received message is part of an existing conversation based on the determined conversation property of the message;
if the received message is part of an existing conversation;
associating the received message with the existing conversation; and
updating a conversation property based on the associated message;
if the received message is not part of an existing conversation;
creating a new conversation; and
setting default properties for the newly created conversation; and
storing the received message for subsequent rendering in an email application user interface as part of one of the new conversation and the existing conversation.
2 Assignments
0 Petitions
Accused Products
Abstract
Emails are modeled as conversations, which are stand-alone email artifacts distinct from conventional folders. Conversations are arranged to reference messages, to have properties and an existence of their own, and present messages to a user reflecting the relationships between the messages as part of a conversation. Emails aggregated under a conversation may be assigned conversation related attributes in addition to the distinct attributes of the conversation itself. Conversations may be processed specially based on their characteristics such as being muted, branched into sub-conversations, and the like.
28 Citations
20 Claims
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1. A method to be executed at least in part in a computing device for providing email communications employing conversation modeling, the method comprising:
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receiving a new message; determining a conversation property of the received message; determining whether the received message is part of an existing conversation based on the determined conversation property of the message; if the received message is part of an existing conversation; associating the received message with the existing conversation; and updating a conversation property based on the associated message; if the received message is not part of an existing conversation; creating a new conversation; and setting default properties for the newly created conversation; and storing the received message for subsequent rendering in an email application user interface as part of one of the new conversation and the existing conversation. - View Dependent Claims (2, 3, 4, 5, 6, 7, 8, 9, 10, 11, 12)
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13. A computing device capable of executing an email application for providing email communications employing conversation modeling, comprising:
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a memory; a data store; a processor coupled to the memory and the data store, wherein the processor is configured to; receive a new message; determine a conversation property of the received message upon one of;
receipt of the message and referencing of the received message by a user;if the determined conversation property matches an existing conversation, associate the received message with the existing conversation and update any aggregated attributes of the existing conversation, wherein the existing conversation is implemented as an independent object;
elsecreate a new conversation and set default properties for the newly created conversation; and render the received message in a user interface of the email application by displaying relationships of messages as part of a conversation textually and graphically. - View Dependent Claims (14, 15, 16)
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17. A computer-readable storage medium with instructions stored thereon for providing email communications employing conversation modeling, the instructions comprising:
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receiving a new message; determining whether the received message is part of an existing conversation based on a least one from a set of;
a message topic determined by heuristic analysis, an “
in reply to”
relationship of the message to another message, and an explicitly defined property of the message;if the received message is part of an existing conversation, associating the received message with the existing conversation and updating any aggregated properties of the existing conversation; if the received message is related to an existing conversation, but does not completely satisfy a predefined criterion for the existing conversation, creating a branch conversation related to the existing conversation and associating the received message with the branch conversation; if the received message is not part of an existing conversation, creating a new conversation and setting default properties for the newly created conversation, wherein the conversations are implemented as independent objects within an email application capable of aggregating messages from distinct storage folders; and rendering the received message in a user interface of the email application by displaying relationships of messages as part of a conversation textually and graphically. - View Dependent Claims (18, 19, 20)
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Specification