E-mail client with programmable address attributes

• US 7,716,292 B2
• Filed: 07/23/2004
• Issued: 05/11/2010
• Est. Priority Date: 06/22/1998
• Status: Expired due to Fees

• Current Assignee: Genesys Telecommunications Laboratories Incorporated (Genesys Cloud Services Incorporated)
• Original Assignee: Genesys Telecommunications Laboratories Incorporated (Genesys Cloud Services Incorporated)
• Inventors: Kikinis, Dan
• Primary Examiner(s): Neurauter, Jr.; George C
• Assistant Examiner(s): Belani; Kishin G
• Application Number:
  US10/898,063
• Publication Number:
  US 20040267892A1
• Time in Patent Office: 2,118 Days
• Field of Search: 709/206
• US Class Current: 709/206
• CPC Class Codes: G06Q 10/10 Office automation; Time management
• CPC Class Codes: G06Q 10/107 Computer-aided management of electronic mailing [e-mailing]

Abstract

An e-mail processing application executable on a computer station having a video display unit (VDU) searches a received e-mail for one or more words, phrases, and addresses for comparison with stored words, phrases and addresses in a stored table, and upon finding a match in the stored table, inserts one or more of words, phrases, or addresses associated in the stored table with the words, phrases or addresses from the received e-mail in any reply to the received e-mail. In a preferred embodiment a “send to” address in a received e-mail triggers automatically one or both of a particular “from” and “reply to” address in any response to the received e-mail. In an alternative embodiment, a “send to” address in a received e-mail, as a result of a table look-up, automatically prepares and sends a new e-mail identical to the received e-mail except for a new “send to” address retrieved from the stored table. In alternative embodiments the application simply provides variable fields in a reply window for a user to enter variable “from” and “reply to” addresses.

Claims

1. An e-mail system, comprising:

a computerized appliance; and

an email application executing on the computerized appliance from a machine-readable medium, the application having;

a first portion displaying, on a display monitor of the computing appliance, a received e-mail to a single user, the email including a send-to address;

a second portion enabling the single user to prepare a reply to the received email; and

a third portion automatically consulting a look-up table in which different from addresses for the same user are associated with send-to addresses, and inserting in the prepared reply a from address retrieved from the look-up table, the from address, even though the reply is from a single user, differing in different replies, depending on the send-to address of the received email.

2. The application of claim 1 wherein the third portion further inserts differing send-to and reply-to addresses in the prepared reply, depending on specific language in a body text of the received email.

3. The application of claim 2 wherein the third portion prepares and sends the reply with a complete reply message in response to the received e-mail containing specific language in a body text.

4. The application of claim 3 further comprising a fourth portion forwarding the received email to a different destination depending on the send-to address in the received email.