System and method for extracting and managing message addresses

• US 8,176,133 B2
• Filed: 04/09/2010
• Issued: 05/08/2012
• Est. Priority Date: 12/29/2003
• Status: Active Grant

• Current Assignee: International Business Machines Corporation
• Original Assignee: International Business Machines Corporation
• Inventors: Kraenzel, Carl J., Moody, Paul B., Gruen, Daniel M., Lucking, Christof, Coppinger, Jodi L.
• Primary Examiner(s): Osman, Ramy M
• Application Number:
  US12/757,834
• Publication Number:
  US 20100198819A1
• Time in Patent Office: 760 Days
• Field of Search: 709/203, 709/206, 709/217, 709/223
• US Class Current: 709/206
• CPC Class Codes: G06Q 10/107 Computer-aided management of electronic mailing [e-mailing]

Abstract

A system and method is disclosed for extracting and maintaining in a virtual address book one or more electronic mail addresses from one or more of the various address fields (e.g., “From,” “To,” “Cc,” “Bcc”) of one or more e-mail messages either transmitted from or received at a predetermined network node (e.g., a client or server). Electronic mail addresses stored in the virtual address book may be made available to “auto-complete” capabilities utilized during the addressing of electronic mail messages.

Claims

1. A non-transitory computer readable storage medium having computer readable instructions embodied thereon, the instructions operable when executed by a processor to facilitate auto-completion of text in an address field of electronic mail addresses, the instructions comprising:

a virtual address book configured to store records for electronic mail addresses, the records comprising a plurality of fields, the plurality of fields including;

i) an electronic mail address;

ii) a name associated with the electronic mail address; and

iii) information regarding prior interaction with the electronic mail address;

an address filter module configured to;

receive a request from a user, via a user interface, to establish a priority rule for ordering records, wherein establishing the priority rule includes receiving a selection from the user of at least one field corresponding to the information regarding prior interaction with the electronic mail address for which a higher priority is assigned to for ordering records; and

an auto-completion module configured to;

in response to the user starting to input text to populate an address field of a new electronic mail message, identify records in the virtual address book matching the user'"'"'s partially inputted text;

order the identified records based on the user established priority rule and the information regarding prior interaction with the electronic mail addresses;

display an ordered list of names corresponding to said ordering of the identified records; and

in response to user selection of a name from the ordered list, auto-complete the text being inputted by the user using data from the record associated with the selected name.

2. The non-transitory computer readable storage medium of claim 1, wherein information regarding prior interaction with the electronic mail address comprises:

the number of messages sent to or received from the electronic mail address.

3. The non-transitory computer readable storage medium of claim 1, wherein information regarding prior interaction with the electronic mail address comprises:

the date or time that a message was last sent to or received from the electronic mail address.

4. The non-transitory computer readable storage medium of claim 1, wherein information regarding prior interaction with the electronic mail address comprises:

an indication whether the electronic mail address is part of a conversation thread that the user previously participated in.

5. The non-transitory computer readable storage medium of claim 4, wherein information regarding prior interaction with the electronic mail address comprises:

an indication whether a message has been shared with the electronic mail address.

6. The non-transitory computer readable storage medium of claim 1, wherein the instructions further comprise an address extraction module configured to:

extract one or more electronic mail addresses present in one or more address fields of one or more electronic mail messages; and

compare each extracted electronic mail address to a list of electronic mail addresses stored in the virtual address book,

wherein new records are created in the virtual address book for extracted electronic mail addresses not already stored in the virtual address book, and existing records are updated for extracted electronic mail addresses already stored in the virtual address book.

7. The non-transitory computer readable storage medium of claim 6, wherein the one or more address fields comprise one or more of a “

From”

field, “

To”

field, “

Cc”

field, or “

Bcc”

field.

8. The non-transitory computer readable storage medium of claim 6, wherein extracting the one or more electronic mail addresses present in the one or more address fields of the one or more electronic mail messages comprises:

extracting every electronic mail address present in every address field of every electronic mail message transmitted from or received at a predetermined network node.

9. The non-transitory computer readable storage medium of claim 8, wherein the predetermined network node comprises a client terminal or a server.

11. The non-transitory computer readable storage medium of claim 1, wherein the virtual address book is stored on a client terminal.

12. The non-transitory computer readable storage medium of claim 1, wherein the at least one field corresponding to the information regarding prior interaction with the electronic mail address comprises one or more of a “

recently sent to”

field, “

frequently sent to”

field, “

recently received”

field, “

frequently received from”

field, “

shared thread with”

field, or “

participated in thread with”

field.

13. The non-transitory computer readable storage medium of claim 1, wherein the address filter module is configured to:

in response to receiving a user selection of one or more inputs corresponding to one or more of the fields of the address book, filter the address book based on the one or more user-selected inputs; and

display, in a graphical user interface, a list of the filtered electronic mail addresses.

14. The non-transitory computer readable storage medium of claim 13, wherein the one or more inputs comprise a check-box.

15. The non-transitory computer readable storage medium of claim 13, wherein the one or more inputs comprise a text-input box.

16. The non-transitory computer readable storage medium of claim 1, wherein receiving the user request to establish the priority rule comprises:

allowing the user to select the order of the plurality of fields, such that certain fields are assigned a higher priority when auto-completing text.

10. The non-transitory computer readable storage medium, wherein the predetermined network node comprises a client terminal, arid the virtual address book is stored on the client terminal such that the process of auto-completing text is enabled when a user at the client terminal is working off-line.

17. A computer-implemented system configured to facilitate auto-completion of text in an address field of electronic mail addresses, the system comprising:

a processor configured to;

access, from a memory, a virtual address book comprising records for electronic mail records, the records comprising a plurality of fields, the plurality of fields including;

i) an electronic mail address;

ii) a name associated with the electronic mail address; and

iii) information regarding prior interaction with the electronic mail address;

receive a request from a user, via a user interface, to establish a priority rule for ordering records, wherein establishing the priority rule includes receiving a selection from the user of at least one field corresponding to the information regarding prior interaction with the electronic mail address for which a higher priority is assigned to for ordering records;

in response to the user starting to input text to populate an address field of a new electronic mail message, identify records in the virtual address book matching the user'"'"'s partially inputted text;

order the identified records based on the user established priority rule and the information regarding prior interaction with the electronic mail addresses;

display an ordered list of names corresponding to said ordering of the identified records; and

in response to user selection of a name from the ordered list, auto-complete the text being inputted by the user using data from the record associated with the selected name.