Methods and apparatus for electronic communication filtering

• US 8,838,708 B1
• Filed: 08/18/2011
• Issued: 09/16/2014
• Est. Priority Date: 08/18/2011
• Status: Active Grant

• Current Assignee: Google LLC (Alphabet Inc.)
• Original Assignee: Google Inc. (Alphabet Inc.)
• Inventors: Rhodes, Bradley, Starner, Thad, Biffle, Cliff L.
• Primary Examiner(s): Lazaro, David
• Assistant Examiner(s): HENRY, MARIEGEORGES A
• Application Number:
  US13/212,441
• Time in Patent Office: 1,125 Days
• Field of Search: 709/221, 709/206, 705/1.1
• US Class Current: 709/206
• CPC Class Codes: H04L 51/212 using filtering or selective blocking

Abstract

Disclosed are systems, methods, and devices for displaying one or more electronic communications associated with a meeting. A request to filter a plurality of electronic communications based on an identifier of a participant of the meeting is received at a computing device. The computing device filters the plurality of electronic communications, based at least on the identifier of the participant, to obtain at least one filtered electronic communication. The computing device generates a display of the at least one filtered electronic communication.

Claims

1. A method, comprising:

receiving, via an electronic meeting notice that comprises a plurality of participant identifiers associated with a meeting, a request at a computing device to filter a plurality of electronic communications based on a first participant identifier of the plurality of participant identifiers associated with the meeting, wherein the plurality of electronic communications comprise the electronic meeting notice;

the computing device filtering the plurality of electronic communications, based at least on the first participant identifier, to obtain at least one filtered electronic communication, wherein filtering the plurality of electronic communications based at least on the first participant identifier comprises;

receiving a first electronic communication of the plurality of electronic communications,

determining whether a sender identifier of a sender of the first electronic communication corresponds to a participant identifier of the plurality of participant identifiers, and

responsive to determining that the sender identifier does not correspond to any participant identifier of the plurality of participant identifiers, identifying the first electronic communication as not being a filtered electronic communication; and

the computing device generating a display of the at least one filtered electronic communication.

2. The method of claim 1, wherein the plurality of electronic communications comprise one or more e-mails, blog posts, social-networking messages, electronic meeting notices, instant messages, short message service (SMS) messages, web pages, other messages related to one or more participants of the meeting, and combinations thereof,

wherein the other messages comprise notifications regarding one or more web pages, bug reports, bug fix reports, trouble tickets, status reports, task origination messages, task update messages, task completion messages, and combinations thereof.

3. The method of claim 1, wherein filtering the plurality of electronic communications further comprises:

responsive to determining that a sender identifier of a sender of a second electronic communication does correspond to the participant identifier, identifying the second electronic communication as being a filtered electronic communication.

4. The method of claim 1, wherein filtering the plurality of electronic communications further comprises:

determining whether a receiver identifier for any receiver of a second electronic communication corresponds to a participant identifier of the plurality of participant identifiers;

responsive to determining that the receiver identifier does not correspond to any participant identifier of the plurality of participant identifiers, identifying the second electronic communication as not being a filtered electronic communication; and

responsive to determining that the receiver identifier corresponds to the participant identifier of the plurality of participant identifiers, identifying the second electronic communication as being a filtered electronic communication.

5. The method of claim 1, wherein filtering the plurality of electronic communications further comprises:

defining a set of communication-based identifiers consisting of;

an identifier of a sender of a second electronic communication of the plurality of electronic communications, and

one or more identifiers of receivers of the second electronic communication of the plurality of electronic communications;

defining a set of meeting-based identifiers consisting of the plurality of participant identifiers;

determining whether the set of communication-based identifiers equals the set of meeting-based identifiers;

responsive to determining that the set of communication-based identifiers does not equal the set of meeting-based identifiers, identifying the second electronic communication as not being a filtered electronic communication; and

responsive to determining that the set of communication-based identifiers equals the set of meeting-based identifiers, identifying the second electronic communication as being a filtered electronic communication.

6. The method of claim 3, wherein filtering the plurality of electronic communications further comprises:

in response to identifying the second electronic communication as being a filtered electronic communication;

determining whether a receiver identifier of any receiver of the second electronic communication corresponds to a participant identifier of the plurality of participant identifiers;

responsive to determining that the receiver identifier does not correspond to any participant identifier of the plurality of participant identifiers, changing an identification of the second electronic communication to not being a filtered electronic communication; and

responsive to determining that the receiver identifier corresponds to the participant identifier of the plurality of participant identifiers, re-identifying the second electronic communication as being a filtered electronic communication.

7. The method of claim 1, further comprising:

updating the electronic meeting notice to include an additional participant; and

wherein generating the display of the at least one filtered electronic communication comprises updating the display of the at least one filtered electronic communication based on the additional participant.

8. The method of claim 1, wherein the display of the at least one filtered electronic communication comprises no more than N electronic communications of the filtered plurality of electronic communications, wherein N is an integer greater than 0.

9. The method of claim 1, wherein the display of the at least one electronic communication includes only electronic communications of the filtered plurality of electronic communications that are no more than N units of time old, wherein N is an integer greater than 0.

10. The method of claim 1, wherein filtering the plurality of electronic communications further comprises filtering the plurality of electronic communications based on a keyword derived from one or more electronic communications in the plurality of electronic communications.

11. The method of claim 1, further comprising:

obtaining an identifier of a non-participant of the meeting; and

wherein filtering the plurality of electronic communications further comprises filtering the plurality of electronic communications, using the computing device, based at least on the identifier of the non-participant.

12. The method of claim 1, wherein generating the display of the at least one filtered electronic communication comprises generating a display of information other than the at least one electronic communication related to the participant of the meeting.

13. The method of claim 12, wherein the information other than the at least one electronic communication related to the participant of the meeting comprises a search result related to the participant of the meeting.

14. The method of claim 13, wherein the search result comprises information from a social network site.

15. The method of claim 1, further comprising:

displaying the generated display of the at least one filtered electronic communication.

16. A computing device, comprising:

a processor;

memory having one or more instructions that, upon execution by the processor, cause the computing device to perform functions comprising;

receiving, via an electronic meeting notice that comprises a plurality of participant identifiers associated with a meeting, a request to filter a plurality of electronic communications based on a first participant identifier of the plurality of participant identifiers associated with the meeting, wherein the plurality of electronic communications comprise the electronic meeting notice;

filtering the plurality of electronic communications based at least on the first participant identifier to obtain at least one filtered electronic communication wherein filtering the plurality of electronic communications based at least on the first participant identifier comprises;

receiving a first electronic communication of the plurality of electronic communications, determining whether a sender identifier of a sender of the first electronic communication corresponds to a participant identifier of the plurality of participant identifiers, and responsive to determining that the sender identifier does not correspond to any participant identifier of the plurality of participant identifiers, identifying the first electronic communication as not being a filtered electronic communication; and

generating a display of the at least one filtered electronic communication.

17. The computing device of claim 16, further comprising a user interface module, and

wherein the functions further comprise:

displaying the generated display of the at least one filtered electronic communication using the user interface module.

18. An article of manufacture including a non-transitory computer-readable storage medium having instructions stored thereon that, in response to execution by a processor, cause the processor to perform functions, the instructions comprising:

instructions to receive, via an electronic meeting notice that comprises a plurality of participant identifiers associated with a meeting, a request to filter a plurality of electronic communications based on a first participant identifier of the plurality of participant identifiers associated with the meeting, wherein the plurality of electronic communications comprise the electronic meeting notice;

instructions to filter the plurality of electronic communications based at least on the first participant identifier to obtain at least one filtered electronic communication, wherein the instructions to filter the plurality of electronic communications based at least on the first participant identifier comprise;

instructions to receive a first electronic communication of the plurality of electronic communications,

instructions to determine whether a sender identifier of a sender of the first electronic communication corresponds to a participant identifier of the plurality of participant identifiers, and

instructions to, responsive to determining that the sender identifier does not correspond to any participant identifier of the plurality of participant identifiers, identify the first electronic communication as not being a filtered electronic communication; and

instructions to generate a display of the at least one filtered electronic communication.