Personalized electronic-mail delivery

• US 20070043817A1
• Filed: 10/27/2006
• Published: 02/22/2007
• Est. Priority Date: 07/27/1999
• Status: Active Grant

• Current Assignee: Quest Software, Inc.
• Original Assignee: Mailfrontier Incorporated A Wholly Owned Subsidiary of, SonicWALL, Inc. (SonicWall Holdings Ltd.)
• Inventors: Oliver, Jonathan, Waterhouse, Steven, Buntine, Wray, Baxter, Rohan
• Granted Patent: US 9,069,845 B2
• Time in Patent Office: Days
• US Class Current: 709/206
• CPC Class Codes: G06F 16/337 Profile generation, learning or modification
• CPC Class Codes: G06F 16/9535 Search customisation based on user profiles and personalisation
• CPC Class Codes: Y10S 707/99931 Database or file accessing
• CPC Class Codes: Y10S 707/99943 Generating database or data structure, e.g. via user interface

Abstract

Personalized electronic-mail delivery is disclosed. The content of incoming electronic-mail messages is identified. Determinations may be made with respect to whether the content of the incoming electronic-mail messages corresponds to a user profile. The user profile may indicate one or more user preferences of a particular user with respect to incoming electronic-mail messages. If the incoming electronic-mail messages correspond to the one or more user preferences indicated in the user profile, the electronic-mail messages may be delivered to an electronic-mail server. The electronic-mail messages may then be displayed to the user via a list of electronic-mail messages reflective of those messages that are stored at the electronic-mail server and accessible to the end-user.

Claims

1. A personalized electronic-mail delivery system, comprising:

an electronic-mail server configured to store electronic-mail messages;

a client computing device coupled to the electronic-mail server, the client computing device configured to display a list of electronic-mail messages stored at the electronic-mail server and accessible to the end-user; and

a gateway appliance coupled to the electronic-mail server, the gateway appliance configured to process an incoming electronic-mail message prior to the incoming electronic-mail message being received by and stored at the electronic-mail server, wherein a filter at the gateway appliance identifies content of the incoming electronic-mail message and determines whether the content of the incoming electronic-mail message corresponds to a user profile indicating one or more user preferences related to the content of incoming electronic-mail messages, and if the incoming electronic-mail message corresponds to the one or more user preferences indicated in the user profile, the gateway appliance delivers the electronic-mail message to the electronic-mail server whereby the incoming electronic-mail message may then be displayed in the list of electronic-mail messages that are stored at the electronic-mail server and accessible to the end-user.

2. The system of claim 1, wherein a tracking module at the gateway appliance identifies an end-user request for a particular electronic-mail message stored at the electronic-mail server.

3. The system of claim 2, wherein information concerning end-user requests for particular electronic-mail messages stored at the electronic-mail served is stored in a database.

4. The system of claim 3, wherein the tracking module associates the information concerning end-user requests for particular electronic-mail messages with a user profile.

5. The system of claim 2, wherein the tracking module at the gateway appliance assigns the particular electronic-mail message requested by the end-user a document identifier.

6. The system of claim 5, wherein information concerning end-user interactions with a particular electronic-mail message is stored in a database, the particular electronic-mail message being identified by its document identifier.

7. The system of claim 4, wherein the user profile corresponds to a group of end-users.

8. The system of claim 1, wherein the filter at the gateway appliance identifies the content of the incoming electronic-mail message at least through identification of one or more keywords, the one or more keywords corresponding to one or more user preferences indicated by the user profile.

9. The system of claim 8, wherein the filter at the gateway appliance further identifies the content of the incoming electronic-mail message through a removal of information irrelevant to the content of the incoming electronic-mail message.

10. The system of claim 4, wherein the user profile is automatically generated based on the information concerning end-user requests for particular electronic-mail messages, wherein the information identifies a theme or concept of the particular electronic-mail message requested by the end-user.

11. The system if claim 4, wherein a user may manually alter the user profile.

12. A gateway apparatus for filtering electronic-mail messages according to a theme or concept of the electronic-mail messages, the gateway apparatus comprising:

a first network interface configured to receive an incoming electronic-mail message;

a filter configured to identify content of the incoming electronic-mail message and determine whether the content of the incoming electronic-mail message corresponds to a user profile indicating one or more user preferences related to the content of the incoming electronic-mail message;

a second network interface configured to transfer the incoming electronic-mail message to an electronic-mail server if the incoming electronic-mail message corresponds to the one or more user preferences indicated in the user profile, whereby the incoming electronic-mail message may then be displayed and made accessible to an end-user at a client device coupled to the electronic-mail server.

13. The gateway apparatus of claim 12 further comprising an updateable storage device and wherein the filter configured to identify the content of the incoming electronic-mail message is a customizable filter capable of being stored in the updateable storage device.

14. The gateway apparatus of claim 12 further comprising an updateable storage device and wherein the user profile is customizable and capable of being stored in the updateable storage device.

15. The gateway apparatus of claim 14, wherein the user profile corresponds to a group of end-users.

16. A computer-readable medium having embodied thereon a program, the program being executable by a processor to perform a method for personalized electronic-mail delivery, the method comprising:

receiving an incoming electronic-mail message;

identifying content of the incoming electronic-mail message;

determining whether the content of the incoming electronic-mail message corresponds to a user profile indicating one or more user preferences for the content of the incoming electronic-mail message;

delivering the electronic-mail message to an electronic-mail server if the content of the incoming electronic-mail message corresponds to the one or more user preferences in the user profile whereby the incoming electronic-mail message may then be displayed to an end-user accessing the electronic-mail server via a client computing device configured to display a list of electronic-mail messages that are stored at the electronic-mail server and accessible by the end-user.

17. A method for processing end-user behavior in an electronic-mail network for effectuating personalized delivery of electronic-mail, comprising:

creating a database entry for a user of an electronic-mail server, the user accessing the electronic-mail server via an electronic-mail client;

tracking requests by the user for access to one or more electronic-mail messages stored at the electronic-mail server; and

storing information in the database entry for the user, the information regarding user requests for access to the one or more electronic-mail messages, wherein the information comprises content information derived from filtering of the one or more electronic-mail messages for which the user requested access.

18. The method of claim 17, wherein the content information is derived from textual information in the electronic-mail message.

19. The method of claim 17, wherein the content information is derived from graphics in the electronic-mail message.

20. The method of claim 17 further comprising creating a user profile for the user, the user profile indicating at least one preference of the user as reflected by the information stored in the database entry.

21. The method of claim 20, further comprising displaying to the user only those future electronic-mail messages that comprise content that corresponds to the at least one preference of the user as reflected by the user profile.

22. The method of claim 20 further comprising:

tracking subsequent requests by the user for access to one or more electronic-mail messages stored at the electronic-mail server;

storing additional information in the database entry for the user, the additional information regarding subsequent user access to the one or more electronic-mail messages, wherein the additional information comprises information derived from filtering the one or more electronic-mail messages for which the user subsequently requested access; and

updating the user profile including the at least one preference as reflected by the additional information stored in the user database entry.

23. The method of claim 17, wherein the filtering comprises extracting structure information from the electronic-mail message.

24. The method of claim 17, wherein the filtering comprises extracting one or more keywords from the electronic-mail message the keyword corresponding to a theme or concept of the electronic-mail message.

25. The method of claim 24, wherein the filtering further comprises extracting one or more terms irrelevant to the theme or concept of the electronic-mail message.