Use of a bulk-email filter within a system for classifying messages for urgency or importance

• US 7,565,403 B2
• Filed: 06/30/2003
• Issued: 07/21/2009
• Est. Priority Date: 03/16/2000
• Status: Expired due to Fees

• Current Assignee: Microsoft Technology Licensing LLC (Microsoft Corporation)
• Original Assignee: Microsoft Corporation
• Inventors: Horvitz, Eric J., Apacible, Johnson T.
• Primary Examiner(s): Caldwell; Andrew
• Assistant Examiner(s): Biagini; Christopher
• Application Number:
  US10/609,818
• Publication Number:
  US 20040039786A1
• Time in Patent Office: 2,213 Days
• Field of Search: 709/206
• US Class Current: 709/206
• CPC Class Codes: G05B 19/404 characterised by control arrangements for compensation, e.g. for backlash, overshoot, tool offset, tool wear, temperature, machine construction errors, load, inertia G05B19/19, G05B19/41 take precedence
• CPC Class Codes: G06Q 10/107 Computer-aided management of electronic mailing [e-mailing]
• CPC Class Codes: H04L 51/04 Real-time or near real-time messaging, e.g. instant messaging [IM]
• CPC Class Codes: H04L 51/212 using filtering or selective blocking
• CPC Class Codes: H04L 51/214 using selective forwarding
• CPC Class Codes: H04L 51/224 providing notification on incoming messages, e.g. pushed notifications of received messages
• CPC Class Codes: H04L 51/226 Delivery according to priorities
• CPC Class Codes: H04L 51/56 Unified messaging, e.g. interactions between e-mail, instant messaging or converged IP messaging [CPM]
• CPC Class Codes: H04L 67/12 specially adapted for proprietary or special-purpose networking environments, e.g. medical networks, sensor networks, networks in vehicles or remote metering networks
• CPC Class Codes: H04L 67/306 User profiles
• CPC Class Codes: H04L 67/51 Discovery or management thereof, e.g. service location protocol [SLP] or web services
• CPC Class Codes: H04L 67/52 specially adapted for the location of the user terminal
• CPC Class Codes: H04L 67/54 Presence management, e.g. monitoring or registration for receipt of user log-on information, or the connection status of the users
• CPC Class Codes: H04L 67/55 Push-based network services
• CPC Class Codes: H04L 67/61 taking into account QoS or priority requirements
• CPC Class Codes: H04L 67/62 Establishing a time schedule for servicing the requests
• CPC Class Codes: H04L 67/63 Routing a service request depending on the request content or context
• CPC Class Codes: H04L 67/75 Indicating network or usage conditions on the user display
• CPC Class Codes: H04L 69/329 in the application layer [OSI layer 7]
• CPC Class Codes: H04L 9/40 Network security protocols

Abstract

The present invention relates to a system and method to facilitate efficient and automated processing of messages. A bulk filter is provided to categorize one or more received messages according to a range of classification, the range spanning from at least a bulk classification of values to at least a non-bulk classification of values. A second filter is provided to further classify the received messages in order to automatically facilitate processing of the messages. The range of classification includes a continuum of values based on a likelihood that the received messages are determined to tend toward or fall within the bulk classification of values or toward/within the non-bulk classification of values. Also, the bulk filter or filters can include an adjustable threshold setting to determine or define differences between the bulk classifications and the non-bulk classifications. Various combinations of filters are possible including multiple filter arrangements, parallel arrangements, cascaded arrangements, and other arrangements to facilitate filtering and sorting of messages in order that users can more efficiently process such information in a timely manner. Applications include the enhancement of classification procedures for identifying urgent or important email from non-urgent or non-important email, with the combination of bulk-email filters with urgency or importance filters in cascaded and parallel filtering methodologies.

Claims

1. A system that filters received messages, the system is recorded on a computer-readable storage medium and capable of execution by a computer, comprising:

a bulk filter to categorize one or more received messages according to a range of classification, the range spanning from a bulk classification of values to a non-bulk classification of values, the bulk filter employs an expected urgency computation followed by a weighting computation to determine whether messages are bulk;

at least a second filter to further classify the received messages in order to automatically facilitate processing of the messages, the second filter is an urgency filter that is employed to assign urgency scores, the urgency filter employs a utility model that assigns an expected cost of delayed review for urgent and non-urgent messages; and

an importance filter that acts in parallel to the urgency filter and is employed to determine the importance of non-bulk messages;

wherein the bulk filter computes a bulk score or discretized states of the bulk score, as a direct input to the second filter forming a cascaded filter, a classifier is then constructed that employs the bulk score to further classify the received messages; and

a notification platform that directs prioritized messages to one or more notification sinks, the notification platform receives the prioritized messages and makes decisions regarding when, where, and how to notify a user by determining a current notification sink, likely location and likely focus of attention of the user, such that if a high importance e-mail is received, the notification platform determines the users location and reformats the message to the notification sink associated with the user and if a lower priority message is received, the notification platform configures to leave the e-mail in the user'"'"'s in-box for later review as desired.

2. The system of claim 1, the range of classification includes a continuum of values based on a likelihood that the received messages are determined to tend toward the bulk classification of values or toward the non-bulk classification of values.

3. The system of claim 1, the bulk filter further comprises an adjustable threshold setting to determine differences between the bulk classification of values and the non-bulk classification of values.

4. The system of claim 1, the messages include at least one of an email and a voice encoded text file.

5. The system of claim 1, at least one of the bulk filter and the second filter examine new messages and annotate the messages with an urgency value, represented in an urgency field, and a likelihood value of bulk email, represented in a bulk email field.

6. The system of claim 5, further comprising a policy component that includes policies or rules for considering inferences relating to message urgency and/or bulk considerations.

7. The system of claim 6, the rules or policies are employed by the policy component to reassign bulk messages of a higher than threshold likelihood of being bulk into a folder for later review.

8. The system of claim 7, further comprising reassigning remaining email that are classified by urgency in another folder.

9. The system of claim 1, further comprising a user interface having at least one of threshold settings, training settings, and bypass settings for interacting with the bulk filter and the second filter.

10. The system of claim 9, further comprising a header analyzer to automatically remove consideration of some messages from the bulk filter.

11. The system of claim 10, further comprising marking messages as an internal to invoke a bypass mechanism.

12. The system of claim 1, further comprising a component to compute an initial value determination following by a time dependent cost function.

13. A computer readable medium having computer readable instructions stored thereon for implementing at least one of the bulk filter and the second filter of claim 1.

14. A method that facilitates message processing, comprising:

employing a first filter to determine a bulk message score for a message, the first filter employs an expected urgency computation followed by a weighting computation to determine whether messages are bulk;

employing a second filter to determine an urgency score for the message, the second filter employs a utility model that assigns an expected cost of delayed review for urgent and non-urgent messages;

employing a third filter that acts in parallel to the second filter to determine importance of non-bulk messages;

sorting the bulk message from other messages based upon at least one of the bulk message score, the urgency score, and the importance score;

computing a bulk score or discretized states of the bulk score, as a direct input to the second filter to form a cascaded filter;

constructing a classifier that takes into consideration the bulk score; and

employing a notification platform that directs prioritized messages to one or more notification sinks, the notification platform receives the prioritized messages and makes decisions regarding when, where, and how to notify a user by determining a current notification sink, likely location and likely focus of attention of the user, such that if a high importance e-mail is received, the notification platform determines the users location and reformats the message to the notification sink associated with the user and if a lower priority message is received, the notification platform configures to leave the e-mail in the user'"'"'s in-box for later review as desired.

15. The method of claim 14, further comprising employing an adjustable threshold to facilitate the sorting.

16. The method of claim 14, further comprising employing one or more classifiers to perform at least one of the first filter and the second filter.

17. The method of claim 14, further comprising bypassing at least one of the filters to enable sorting the bulk message from other messages.

18. The method of claim 14, further comprising employing at least one of a parallel combination of filters and a serial combination of filters to enable sorting of the bulk message from the other messages.

19. The method of claim 14, further comprising performing a weighting operation to determine the bulk message score.

20. The method of claim 14, further comprising utilizing an importance classifier followed by an urgency classifier to categorize bulk messages.

21. The method of claim 14, further comprising utilizing an initial value filter followed by a time dependent cost filter.

22. A method that facilitates message processing, comprising:

employing a first filter to determine a bulk message score for a message, the first filter employs an expected urgency computation followed by a weighting computation to determine whether messages are bulk;

employing a second filter to determine an importance score for the message;

employing a third filter that acts in parallel to the second filter to determine an urgency score for the message, the third filter employs a utility model that assigns an expected cost of delayed review for urgent and non-urgent messages;

sorting the bulk message from other messages based upon at least one of the bulk message score, the importance score, and the urgency score;

computing a bulk score or discretized states of the bulk score, as a direct input to the second filter to form a cascaded filter;

constructing a classifier that takes into consideration the bulk score; and

employing a notification platform that directs prioritized messages to one or more notification sinks, the notification platform receives the prioritized messages and makes decisions regarding when, where, and how to notify a user by determining a current notification sink, likely location and likely focus of attention of the user, such that if a high importance e-mail is received, the notification platform determines the users location and reformats the message to the notification sink associated with the user and if a lower priority message is received, the notification platform configures to leave the e-mail in the user'"'"'s in-box for later review as desired.