Simultaneous synchronous split-domain email routing with conflict resolution

• US 7,818,384 B2
• Filed: 07/26/2007
• Issued: 10/19/2010
• Est. Priority Date: 07/26/2007
• Status: Active Grant

• Current Assignee: j2 Cloud Services, LLC (Consensus Cloud Solutions, Inc.)
• Original Assignee: MXToolBox, Inc.
• Inventors: Rachal, Eric M., LeBlond, Peter
• Primary Examiner(s): Chan; Wing F
• Assistant Examiner(s): Yohannes; Tesfay
• Application Number:
  US11/881,391
• Publication Number:
  US 20090030993A1
• Time in Patent Office: 1,181 Days
• Field of Search: 709/206
• US Class Current: 709/206
• CPC Class Codes: G06Q 10/107 Computer-aided management of electronic mailing [e-mailing]

Abstract

An email address may be associated with more than one inbox on more than one server. An email sent to such an address may not be delivered automatically to all the inboxes because mail transfer agents follow a rule that each email address is uniquely associated with one inbox on one server, so such agents stop after delivering email to the first inbox. A switching mail transfer agent processes email to deliver to more than one inboxes associated with the address substantially synchronously and substantially without duplicates being delivered to the same inbox.

Claims

1. A method of delivering an original electronic message to one or more points of delivery that are not specified in the destination address of the original message, the method comprising:

providing one or more duplicating mail transfer agents to receive one or more original electronic messages and make one or more copies of the original messages, wherein each copy has the same destination address as its original message;

receiving at one of the duplicating electronic mail transfer agents, the original electronic message with a destination address;

providing a database accessible by the one or more duplicating mail transfer agents of additional mail transfer agents associated with the destination address of the original message;

making one or more copies of the original messages by the one or more duplicating mail transfer agents, wherein each copy has the same destination address as the original message;

associating one of the additional mail transfer agents from the database to each copy of the original messages, wherein each mail transfer agent is different from each of the other mail transfer agents so that each copy of the messages has a point of delivery different from each of the other copies;

transmitting the original electronic message towards its destination address; and

transmitting each copy of the messages synchronously towards its respective associated mail transfer agent.

2. The method of claim 1 wherein at least one of the additional mail transfer agents delivery addresses is a duplicating mail transfer agent.

3. The method of claim 1 further comprising determining whether one or more of the copy messages would be delivered to the same mail transfer agent as another copy and if so then dropping the copy electronic message.

4. The method of claim 3 wherein the step of determining whether the copy electronic message is a duplicate further comprises examining a tag on the electronic message, the tag being indicative of the transmitting of the copy electronic message to at least one of the mail transfer agents.

5. The method of claim 1 further comprising identifying one or more of the copy messages as spam.

6. The method of claim 1 wherein transmitting one of the copy electronic messages toward its associated mail transfer agent further comprises transmitting the copy electronic message to a queue.

7. The method of claim 6 further comprising transmitting the copy-electronic message from the queue if an electronic message transfer agent associated with its destination address is available.

8. A method for automatically delivering via a network an email having a recipient address associated with more than one inbox on one or more mail transfer agents to inboxes associated with the recipient address, the method comprising the steps of:

providing one or more duplicating mail transfer agents to receive one or more original electronic messages and make one or more copies of the original messages, wherein each copy has the same recipient address as its original message;

providing a database of additional mail transfer agents associated with the recipient address;

transmitting the email from a first mail transfer agent to one of the duplicating transfer agents before delivering the email to the recipient address;

creating a copy of the email for each mail transfer agent associated with the recipient address, wherein the copy has the same destination address as the original;

applying one or more email addressing policies to each copy of the email to associate the recipient address with one or more mail transfer agents; and

delivering the email automatically and synchronously to mail transfer agents associated with the recipient address.

9. The method of claim 8, further comprising the step of duplicate prevention prior to delivering the email to one of the additional mail transfer agents.

10. The method of claim 9, wherein the step of duplicate prevention comprises tagging a duplicate email as a duplicate and preventing delivery of the email tagged as a duplicate.

11. The method of claim 8, wherein the step of duplicate prevention comprises creating an alias delivery address at the one or more duplicating mail transfer agents, transmitting the aliased email to the first mail transfer agent;

forcing transmission of the aliased email back to one of the duplicating mail transfer agents;

detecting the aliased address at the one or more duplicating mail transfer agents and dropping the aliased email by one of the duplicating mail transfer agents.

12. The method of claim 8, wherein the one or more duplicating mail transfer agents interact with an address policy database for applying one of the address policies to the email.

13. The method of claim 8, wherein the recipient address resides on a mail transfer agent [at least one of the inboxes resides on a different server] from at least one of the other mail transfer agents.

14. The method of claim 8, wherein each copy of the email is delivered to the mail transfer agents substantially synchronously.

15. A network comprising:

one or more local mail transfer agents;

one or more non-local mail transfer agents networked with at least one of the local mail transfer agents;

one or more duplicating mail transfer agents networked with at least one of the local and at least one of the non-local mail transfer agents; and

at least one address policy database accessible by at least one of the one or more duplicating mail transfer agents, wherein the database contains additional non-local delivery addresses associated with at least one of the one or more local mail transfer agents;

wherein an email received by one of the duplicating mail transfer agents is copied, tagged, associated with an address policy from the policy database and delivered to at least one of the one or more local and at least one of the one or more non-local mail transfer agents with duplicate delivery prevention.

16. The network of claim 15, wherein at least one of the local mail transfer agents does not have local relay capability and is configured to force transmission of the email to one of the non-local duplicating mail transfer agents, and further wherein the non-local duplicating mail transfer agent is configured to bounce the email back to the local mail transfer agent with duplicate delivery prevention.

17. The network of claim 15, further comprising one or more spam detectors external to at least one of the duplicating mail transfer agents.

18. The network of claim 15, further comprising an SMTP relay network connecting at least one of the local and at least one of the non-local mail transfer agents.