EMAIL AUTO-FILING AND MANAGEMENT

• US 20110219083A1
• Filed: 12/09/2010
• Published: 09/08/2011
• Est. Priority Date: 03/04/2010
• Status: Abandoned Application

• Current Assignee: Victor Nishi
• Original Assignee: Victor Nishi
• Inventors: NISHI, VICTOR
• Application Number:
  US12/964,102
• Publication Number:
  US 20110219083A1
• Time in Patent Office: Days
• US Class Current: 709/206
• CPC Class Codes: G06F 15/16 Combinations of two or more digital computers each having at least an arithmetic unit, a program unit and a register, e.g. for a simultaneous processing of several programs coordinating program control therefor G06F9/52; in regulating and control system G05B
• CPC Class Codes: G06Q 10/107 Computer-aided management of electronic mailing [e-mailing]
• CPC Class Codes: H04L 51/216 Handling conversation history, e.g. grouping of messages in sessions or threads

Abstract

A method, apparatus and computer instructions for automatically capturing, filing and managing email as both individual mail objects and as entire conversation threads. When further integrated with a discussion forum system, the invention makes it possible to share these conversation threads with a discussion forum application so that posts and replies made via the discussion forum application communicate with email users, and email messages can be auto-filed, organized and shared between team members within the forum. And when integrated with an archive system, the invention can automatically file both individual emails and entire threads into an archive system, and can further associated meta-data with these archive objects.

Claims

1. A method in a data processing system for managing electronic messages whereby:

a. all messages are organized as discussion threads; and

b. the central object for management and organization purposes is the thread rather than the individual messages.

2. A method in a data processing system for managing electronic messages, the method comprising:

a. receiving an initial electronic message by said data processing system;

b. modifying said initial electronic message to create one or more recreated messages;

c. defining that said data processing system he a recipient of a reply message made in response to said recreated message(s); and

d. upon receipt of said reply message, associating said reply message with said initial electronic message,

whereby said reply messages are received by said data processing system without the addition of any manual effort on the part of message recipients beyond simply replying to said recreated messages,

3. The method of claim 2, further comprising:

a. modifying said reply message by said data processing system to create one or more recreated reply messages; and

b. defining that said data processing system he a recipient of a second reply message made in response to said recreated reply message(s),

whereby any reply message that can be traced back to said initial electronic message in a parent-child relationship may be similarly received by said data processing system without the addition of any manual effort on the part of the message recipients beyond simply replying to said recreated reply messages.

4. The method of claim 2, further comprising parsing the contents of said initial electronic message and storing the parsed message contents into a data storage device.

5. The method of claim 2, wherein said electronic messages include emails.

6. The method of claim 5, wherein an email address is used to define said data processing system as a recipient of said reply message.

7. The method of claim 2 wherein an email client application sends said initial electronic message to said data processing system.

8. The method of claim 2, wherein a globally unique identifier is used to associate said reply messages to said initial electronic message.

9. The method of claim 8, wherein said globally unique identifier is used to organize said initial electronic message and said associated replies into conversation threads.

10. The method of claim 2, further comprising a means for diverting email from an email server and sending it instead to said data processing system.

11. The method of claim 2, further comprising a means for associating additional metadata with said initial electronic message.

12. The method of claim 2, wherein the method is implemented as part of an archiving or document management system.

13. The method of claim 12, further comprising a means for automatically filing electronic messages into said archiving or document management system.

14. The method of claim 2, wherein the method is implemented as part of a discussion forum and said electronic messages further include forum posts, email notifications or RSS feeds.

15. The method of claim 14 wherein the method is implemented as part of said discussion forum and further included as part of a wiki or blog software program.

16. The method of claim 2, wherein the method is implemented as part of a chat or short messaging system (SMS) and said electronic messages further include chat or SMS posts.

17. A data processing system for managing electronic messages, the data processing system comprising:

a. a bus system;

b. a memory connected to the bus system, wherein the memory includes computer useable program code; and

c. a processing unit connected to the bus system, wherein the processing unit executes the computer useable program code to;

d. receive an initial electronic message and parse its contents into a data storage device;

e. modify said initial electronic message by said data processing system to create one or more recreated messages;

f. define said data processing system as a recipient of a reply message made in response to said recreated message(s); and

g. upon receipt of said reply message, associate said reply message with said initial electronic message.

18. The data processing system of claim 17, wherein said data processing unit further executes the said computer useable program code to:

a. modify said reply message by said data processing system to create one or more recreated reply messages; and

b. define that said data processing system be a recipient of a reply message made in response to said recreated reply message(s).