Identifying unique content in electronic mail messages

• US 8,225,219 B2
• Filed: 02/12/2008
• Issued: 07/17/2012
• Est. Priority Date: 02/12/2008
• Status: Active Grant

• Current Assignee: Microsoft Technology Licensing LLC (Microsoft Corporation)
• Original Assignee: Microsoft Corporation
• Inventors: Edelen, James J., Pereira, Jorge, Bhakar, Gautam
• Primary Examiner(s): Tran, Tuyetlien
• Assistant Examiner(s): WENG, PEI YONG
• Application Number:
  US12/029,902
• Publication Number:
  US 20090204903A1
• Time in Patent Office: 1,617 Days
• Field of Search: 715/753, 715/752, 709/206
• US Class Current: 715/753
• CPC Class Codes: G06Q 10/107 Computer-aided management of electronic mailing [e-mailing]

Abstract

Unique content in interrelated email messages is identified and duplicate content filtered out for user friendly display of a flow of exchange within the interrelated messages. Follow-on messages such as replies or forwards are compared to the original message to determine which part of a follow-on message is not present in the original message and is a unique part of the follow-on message. The comparison includes parsing of the messages to extract user viewable parts determination of which extracted part is the last message part containing unique information. Once the unique message part is determined, message body that excludes everything after the unique part including the headers is be displayed.

Claims

1. A method to be executed at least in part in a computing device for removing duplicate content in displaying interrelated messages, comprising:

receiving at least two interrelated messages, the at least two interrelated messages comprising an original message and at least one reply message, the at least one reply message comprising the original message, an original message header and reply message content in response to the original message;

determining matching content parts within the interrelated messages;

determining unique content by comparing the matching content parts and detecting a non-matching portion in a content part, wherein determining the unique content further includes detecting a last content part in the original message and the reply message, the last content part including at least one of an advertising blurb and a disclaimer, wherein the last content part is ignored in determining the unique content;

extracting the content part containing the unique content, the unique content including the reply message content and excluding the original message and the original message header; and

displaying the interrelated messages by including only extracted content parts with unique content, wherein the interrelated messages are displayed according to a user interface scheme reflecting relationships between the interrelated messages.

2. The method of claim 1, wherein the content parts are determined from user viewable message parts.

3. The method of claim 1, wherein determining the unique content further includes ignoring formatting and style attributes of matching content parts.

4. The method of claim 1, wherein the content parts include at least one from a set of:

textual data, graphical data, an image, an audio file, a video file, and a location identifier link.

5. The method of claim 1, wherein determining the unique content further includes detecting and ignoring a message editor based conversion.

6. The method of claim 1, wherein at least one of determining matching content parts and determining unique content also includes utilizing at least one of:

a tagging scheme identifying content origin and a checksum scheme associated with each content part.

16. The method of claim 3, wherein ignoring the formatting and style attributes of the matching content parts comprises ignoring editor based changes, the editor based changes comprising a conversion of text to a graphic.

7. A computing device capable of executing an email application for removing duplicate content in displaying interrelated messages, comprising:

a memory;

a data store; and

a processor coupled to the memory and the data store, wherein the processor is configured to;

receive an original message and a reply message, the reply message comprising the original message, an original message header and reply message content in response to the original message;

determine user viewable body text from both messages;

determine matching message parts within the original message and the reply message;

determine unique text portions by comparing the matching message parts and detecting non-matching text portions, wherein determining the unique text portions further includes detecting a last content part in the original message and the reply message, the last content part including at least one of an advertising blurb and a disclaimer, wherein the last content part is ignored in determining the unique text portions;

extract the unique text portions;

extract a message part containing a unique text portion, if the unique text portion is integrated in the message part with non-unique text portions, the unique text portion including the reply message content, the non-unique text portions including the original message; and

display the original message and the reply message by including the extracted unique text portions and the extracted message part only, wherein the original message and the reply message are displayed according to a user interface scheme reflecting relationships between the original message and the reply message.

8. The computing device of claim 7, wherein a formatting, a font, a style, and a size of the message parts are ignored when determining the unique text portions.

9. The computing device of claim 7, wherein the processor is further configured to:

compare at least one additional message to the original message and the reply message iteratively determining matching message parts and determining unique text portions.

10. The computing device of claim 7, wherein the processor is further configured to:

remove a message part from display if the message part is determined to be a header containing information associated with at least one of a sender, a recipient, and a subject of the message.

11. The computing device of claim 7, wherein the original message and the reply message are part of a conversation.

17. The computing device of claim 8, wherein the style comprises editor based changes in the message parts, the editor based changes comprising a conversion of text to a graphic.

12. A computer-readable storage device with instructions stored thereon which, when executed by a computing device, will cause the computing device to perform a method for removing duplicate content in displaying interrelated messages, the instructions comprising:

receiving a plurality of interrelated messages;

determining content parts within each of the plurality of interrelated messages, the content parts comprising an original message body part and at least one reply message body part, the at least one reply message body part comprising the original message body part and reply message content in response to the original message;

determining whether each of the content parts includes a header;

removing determined headers in each of the messages other than a top header in each message;

determining matching message body parts within the interrelated messages;

determining if any of the matching message body parts include unique content by comparing the matching content parts and detecting a non-matching portion, wherein determining the unique content includes detecting a last content part in the original message body part and the reply message body part, the last content part including at least one of an advertising blurb and a disclaimer, wherein the last content part is ignored in determining the unique content;

extracting the message body parts containing the unique content, the unique content including the reply message content and excluding the original message body part; and

displaying user selected interrelated messages by including only extracted message body parts with unique content, wherein the user selected interrelated messages are displayed according to a user interface scheme reflecting relationships between the interrelated messages.

13. The computer-readable storage device of claim 12, wherein the instructions further comprise:

if a message body part includes unique content inserted in between duplicate content, extracting the entire message body part for subsequent display.

14. The computer-readable storage device of claim 12, wherein the comparison of matching content parts includes parsing of textual data in the content parts and comparison at one of:

word and sentence level.

15. The computer-readable storage device of claim 12, wherein the content parts include at least one from a set of:

textual data, an audio recording, a video recording, an image, application data, and a graphic.

18. The computer-readable storage device of claim 12, wherein determining the unique content further includes ignoring formatting and style attributes of the matching message body parts, wherein ignoring the formatting and style attributes of the matching message body parts comprises ignoring editor based changes, the editor based changes comprising a conversion of text to a graphic.