METHOD AND SYSTEM FOR SEARCHING AND RANKING ELECTRONIC MAILS BASED ON PREDEFINED ALGORITHMS

• US 20120124041A1
• Filed: 11/16/2011
• Published: 05/17/2012
• Est. Priority Date: 11/17/2010
• Status: Active Grant

• Current Assignee: Malvika Bawri & Vinay Bawri
• Original Assignee: Malvika Bawri & Vinay Bawri
• Inventors: BAWRI, Malvika, BAWRI, Vinay
• Granted Patent: US 8,745,045 B2
• Time in Patent Office: Days
• US Class Current: 707/728
• CPC Class Codes: G06Q 10/107 Computer-aided management of electronic mailing [e-mailing]

Abstract

A method for searching a mailbox of a user to identify and present results relevant to the user'"'"'s requirements. The mailbox comprises a plurality of e-mails. The method comprises receiving an input from the user specifying the user'"'"'s requirements. The received input is used to identify one or more contexts of a search. The search is then conducted in the mailbox based on the identified context(s) to identify one or more results relevant to the input. The results are e-mails and/or e-mail attachments that match the user'"'"'s requirements. The identified results are then ranked according to the extent of relevance to the received input. The results are ranked based on a plurality of pre-defined conditions. The results are then presented to the user on a display at the computer according to the ranking.

Claims

1. A computer-implemented method for searching a computer mailbox of a user to identify and present one or more results relevant to the user'"'"'s requirements, the computer mailbox comprising a plurality of e-mails, the method comprising:

receiving at the computer, an input from the user specifying the user'"'"'s requirements;

identifying at least one context of a search based on the input;

searching in the computer mailbox according to the at least one context to identify one or more results relevant to the input, the results being at least one of one or more e-mails and one or more e-mail attachments;

ranking each of the results according to the extent of relevance to the received input, wherein the ranking is performed based on a plurality of pre-defined conditions; and

presenting the results to the user according to the ranking, the results being presented on a display at the computer.

2. The computer-implemented method of claim 1, wherein the input comprises at least one search term.

3. The computer-implemented method of claim 2, wherein the input further includes an advanced search option, the advanced search option being selected from a plurality of pre-defined advanced search options.

4. The computer-implemented method of claim 3, wherein the advanced search option is a log-in passwords search.

5. The computer-implemented method of claim 4, wherein the advanced search option of the log-in passwords search is selected using a sub-process comprising:

receiving at the computer a first pre-define phrase from the user, the pre-defined phrase being a user identity (User ID);

identifying one or more e-mails in the computer in which the first pre-defined phrase appears;

scanning by the computer to find the text within a pre-defined limit of the first pre-defined phrase in each of the identified one or more e-mails to determine one or more combinations of a second pre-defined phrase, the second predefined phrase being at least one of a password, pin and pin number; and

presenting the e-mail comprising the combination of the first pre-defined phrase and second predefined phrase to the user, the email being presented at a display in the computer.

6. The computer-implemented method of claim 3, wherein the advanced search option is an alpha-numeric and special characters search.

7. The computer-implemented method of claim 6, wherein the advanced search option of the alpha numeric and special characters search is selected using a sub-process comprising:

searching in the computer mailbox according to the identified context to identify one or more results relevant to the received input and comprising at least one of alpha-numeric, numeric and special characters;

scanning the identified results to identify at least one of the numeric, alphanumeric and special character; and

presenting the e-mails with at least one of the alphanumeric, numeric and special character to the user, the email being presented at a display in the computer.

8. The computer-implemented method of claim 3, wherein the advanced search option is a search in commercial e-mails.

9. The computer-implemented method of claim 8, wherein the advanced search option of the search in commercial emails is selected using a sub-process comprising:

checking for each e-mail in the computer if a domain name of the e-mail is present in a pre-defined list of commercial domains, and

checking each e-mail in the computer if the e-mail satisfies at least one criterion of the user'"'"'s response “

received e-mail has never been replied to”

, “

an e-mail has never been composed to addresses of the received e-mail,” and

“

a sender of an e-mail has never sent an e-mail to the user with a CC (Carbon Copy) to the said e-mail address”

.

10. The computer-implemented method of claim 2, wherein the at least one search term is received in a pre-defined syntax.

11. The computer-implemented method of claim 10, wherein the pre-defined syntax comprises one of from person A to person B, from person A with an attachment file type, an attachment file type, an attachment name with an attachment file type and an attachment.

12. The computer implemented method of claim 10, wherein identifying the context of the search is performed using a sub-process comprising:

identifying the context as at least one of searching for an attachment, searching for an attachment with an attachment type, and searching for an attachment name with an attachment type, according to the syntax of the received at least one search term;

identifying the context as searching for a domain when the at least one search term matches with a domain name in at least one of a pre-defined list of domain names and plurality of e-mails in the mailbox;

identifying the context as searching for a person when the at least one search term matches with a contact in at least one of a pre-defined contacts list in an address book and the plurality of e-mails in the mailbox;

identifying the context as searching for a general term when the none of the contexts searching for an attachment, searching for an attachment with an attachment type, searching for an attachment name with an attachment type, searching for a person and searching for a domain is identified; and

identifying the context according to an advanced search option from a plurality of pre-defined advanced search options by the user when the advanced search option is selected by the user,

wherein each of the identifying steps are performed in the computer.

13. The computer-implemented method of claim 12, wherein the identified attachments are ranked based on at least one of font size, capitalization, boldening effect, color scheme, italicization, or underlining effect of the at least one search term with respect to the average format of the text in the attachment.

14. The computer-implemented method of claim 13, wherein presenting the results comprises presenting the content of attachments according to the rank.

15. The computer-implemented method of claim 13, wherein presenting the results comprises listing the attachments according to the rank.

16. The computer-implemented method of claim 1, wherein searching comprises searching in an e-mail body not including appended earlier e-mails, wherein the end of the e-mail body is identified by using a plurality of pre-defined attributes.

17. The method of claim 1, wherein ranking the identified results by the computer based on a plurality of pre-defined conditions is performed using a sub-process comprising:

providing by the computer hierarchy levels to the identified at least one result based on the context through which the result is identified;

providing by the computer hierarchy levels to the identified at least one result in which at least one search term appears in the subject line, wherein the at least one result is an e-mail;

providing by the computer hierarchy levels to the identified at least one result in which at least one search term appears in a pre-determined range of characters in a body of the at least one result, wherein the at least one result is an e-mail;

providing by the computer hierarchy levels to the identified at least one result in which at least one search term appears in the body other than the subject line, the pre-determined range of characters, attachment name and attachment, wherein the at least one result is an e-mail;

providing by the computer hierarchy levels to the identified at least one result in which at least one search term appears in a pre-defined format within the content of the attachment;

providing by the computer hierarchy levels to the identified at least one result wherein the at least one result is a commercial e-mail;

providing by the computer hierarchy levels to the identified at least one result wherein the at least one result is a low-priority e-mail;

providing by the computer hierarchy levels to the identified at least one result based on the date of the at least one result; and

ranking the e-mails based on the provided hierarchy levels.

18. The computer-implemented method of claim 17, wherein providing hierarchy levels to the identified at least one result wherein the result is an e-mail, comprises designating each e-mail in the results as a commercial e-mail by a sub-process comprising:

checking by the computer if the domain of the e-mail matches with domains in a pre-defined list of commercial domains; and

checking by the computer if the e-mail satisfies at least one criterion of user'"'"'s response “

received e-mail has never been replied to”

, “

an e-mail has never been composed to addresses of the received e-mail,” and

“

a sender of an e-mail has never sent an e-mail to the user with a CC (Carbon Copy) to the said e-mail address”

.

19. The computer-implemented method of claim 17, wherein providing hierarchy levels to the identified at least one result comprises designating each e-mail in the results as a low-priority e-mail if the e-mail has at least one of font size larger than a predefined font size and text in multiple colors, and if the e-mail is addressed to multiple clusters of e-mail addresses and each cluster has more than a pre-defined number of e-mail addresses such that a pre-defined percentage of e-mail addresses in the cluster are not present in the user'"'"'s address book.

20. The computer-implemented method of claim 17, wherein presenting the results comprises highlighting the at least one search term.

21. The computer-implemented method of claim 1, wherein presenting the results comprises presenting a plurality of terms adjacent to the at least one search term in the results, wherein the terms other than conjunctions are presented, wherein terms that occur more than a pre-defined minimum number in the results are presented.

22. The computer-implemented method of claim 21, wherein presenting the results further comprises:

receiving a selection of one of the presented adjacent terms by the computer, the selection being made by the user; and

presenting a sub-set of results in which the selected term occurs adjacent to the at least one search term.

23. The computer-implemented method of claim 1, wherein presenting the results comprises:

identifying e-mails in the results that satisfy one or more pre-defined conditions to determine e-mails forming a part of an e-mail chain by the computer;

presenting a latest e-mail in the e-mail chain representing the e-mail chain while presenting the results to the user; and

presenting all e-mails of the e-mail chain when the user selects to see all e-mails in the e-mail chain.

24. The computer-implemented method of claim 1, wherein presenting the results is performed using a sub-process comprising:

scanning the subject lines of all results that are e-mails in the computer;

ranking by the computer of one or more words according to the number of occurrences, wherein the one or more words do not include an article or a conjunction;

selecting by the computer of one or more words out of the ranked one or more words based on a pre-defined parameter for creating a manageable number of folders; and

creating folders in the computer corresponding to each of the selected words, wherein the folder of each selected word comprises the results in which the word occurs in the subject line.