METHOD AND SYSTEM FOR EMAIL PROCESSING

• US 20100332608A1
• Filed: 06/29/2010
• Published: 12/30/2010
• Est. Priority Date: 06/30/2009
• Status: Active Grant

• Current Assignee: International Business Machines Corporation
• Original Assignee: International Business Machines Corporation
• Inventors: Yu, Lei, Chen, Xiang, Wei, Xin Yan, Li, Wei
• Granted Patent: US 9,143,356 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 51/216 Handling conversation history, e.g. grouping of messages in sessions or threads
• CPC Class Codes: H04L 51/42 Mailbox-related aspects, e.g. synchronisation of mailboxes

Abstract

An Email processing method and system comprising in response to obtaining an Email, parsing contents of the Email to obtain an Email subject identifier of the Email, at least one new interaction record, and interaction information corresponding to the at least one new interaction record; determining whether there is a merged Email, which has a merge Email subject identifier matching a subject identifier of the Email, and conforms to a predefined interaction content structure comprising at least one interaction record divided by interaction relationship of contents; and in response to that the determination result is yes, merging the at least one new interaction record of the Email into the merged Email to generate a new merged Email based on the interaction information corresponding to the at least one new interaction record.

Claims

1. An Email processing method, comprising steps of:

in response to obtaining an Email, parsing contents of the Email to obtain an Email subject identifier of the Email, at least one new interaction record, and interaction information corresponding to the at least one new interaction record;

determining whether there is a merged Email, which has a merge Email subject identifier matching a subject identifier of the Email, and conforms to a predefined interaction content structure comprising at least one interaction record divided by interaction relationship of contents; and

in response to that the determination result is yes, merging the at least one new interaction record of the Email into the merged Email to generate a new merged Email based on the interaction information corresponding to the at least one new interaction record.

2. The processing method of claim 1, further comprising a step of:

in response to that the determination result is no, based on the at least one new interaction record of the Email and the interaction information corresponding to the at least new interaction record, generating a merged Email with a merged Email subject identifier matching the subject identifier of the Email.

3. The processing method of claim 1, wherein the predefined interaction content structure comprises a tree structure formed taking the at least one interaction record as its node.

4. The processing method of claim 3, wherein the merged Email is uniquely identified by the subject identifier thereof.

5. The processing method of claim 4, wherein each of the interaction records comprises a node identifier uniquely identifying the interaction record.

6. The processing method of claim 5, wherein the interaction information comprises the node ID of the interaction record of the direct parent node of the interaction record.

7. The processing method of claim 6, wherein the step of merging the at least one new interaction record of the Email into the merged Email based on the interaction information corresponding to the at least one new interaction record further comprises steps of:

determining whether the new interaction record is a root node;

in response to determination that the new interaction record is a root node, adding the new interaction record into the merged Email as a root node; and

in response to determination that the new interaction record is not a root node, searching the merged Email for the node identifier matching that of the interaction record of the direct parent node included in the interaction information, and then adding the new interaction record into the merged Email as a child of the direct parent node.

8. The processing method of claim 6, wherein the step of parsing contents of the Email further comprises a step of:

for each new interaction record, creating a relationship table storing the node identifier and the interaction information of each new interaction record.

9. The processing method of claim 1, wherein the processing method is implemented on an Email client.

10. The processing method of claim 9, further comprising a step of backing up the Email on an Email client of at least one participant.

11. The processing method of claim 10, further comprising a step of:

in response to a request from a participant'"'"'s Email client on which the merged Email has been deleted, regenerating the merged Email using the Email backed up on the other participants'"'"' Email client.

12. The processing method of claim 9, further comprising a step of presenting the new merged Email.

13. The processing method of claim 1, wherein the processing method is implemented on an Email server.

14. An Email processing system, comprising:

a parsing processor configured to, in response to obtaining an Email, parse contents of the Email to obtain an Email subject identifier of the Email, at least one new interaction record, and interaction information corresponding to the at least one new interaction record;

a determining processor configured to determine whether there is a merged Email, which has a merge Email subject identifier matching a subject identifier of the Email, and conforms to a predefined interaction content structure comprising at least one interaction record divided by interaction relationship of contents; and

a merged Email generation processor configured to, in response to that the determination result is yes, merging the at least one new interaction record of the Email into the merged Email to generate a new merged Email based on the interaction information corresponding to the at least one new interaction record.

15. The Email processing system of claim 14, wherein the merged Email generation processor is further configured to, in response to that the determination result is no, based on the at least one new interaction record of the Email and the interaction information corresponding to the at least new interaction record, generating a merged Email with a merged Email subject identifier matching the subject identifier of the Email.

16. The Email processing system of claim 14, wherein the predefined interaction content structure comprises a tree structure taking the at least one interaction record as its node.

17. The Email processing system of claim 16, wherein the merged Email is uniquely identified by a subject identifier thereof.

18. The Email processing system of claim 17, wherein each of the interaction records comprises a node identifier uniquely identifying the interaction record.

19. The Email processing system of claim 18, wherein the interaction information comprises the node ID of the interaction record of the direct parent node of the interaction record.

20. The Email processing system of claim 19, wherein the merged Email generation processor is further configured to:

determine whether the new interaction record is a root node;

in response to determination that the new interaction record is a root node, add the new interaction record into the merged Email as a root node; and

in response to determination that the new interaction record is not a root node, search the merged Email for the node identifier matching that of the interaction record of the direct parent node included in the interaction information, and then adding the new interaction record into the merged Email as a child of the direct parent node.

21. The Email processing system of claim 19, wherein the parsing processor is further configured to, for each new interaction record, creat a relationship table storing the node identifier and the interaction information of each new interaction record.

22. The Email processing system of claim 14, wherein the processing system is implemented on an Email client.

23. The Email processing system of claim 22, wherein the Email processing system backs up the Email on an Email client of at least one participant.

24. The Email processing system of claim 23, further configured to:

in response to a request from a participant'"'"'s Email client on which the merged Email has been deleted, regenerate the merged Email using the Email backed up on the other participants'"'"' Email client.

25. The Email processing system of claim 22, further comprising a presenting processor configured to present the new merged Email.