Method and system for sorting and forwarding electronic messages and other data

• US 6,442,589 B1
• Filed: 01/14/1999
• Issued: 08/27/2002
• Est. Priority Date: 01/14/1999
• Status: Expired due to Fees

• Current Assignee: Fujitsu Limited
• Original Assignee: Fujitsu Limited
• Inventors: Takahashi, Tadashi, Matsumoto, Hitoshi, Kumazawa, Takeshi, Hirao, Tsuyoshi, Araki, Hirokatsu
• Primary Examiner(s): Harrell, Robert B.
• Application Number:
  US09/231,522
• Time in Patent Office: 1,321 Days
• Field of Search: 709/200, 709/206, 709/207, 709/208, 709/213, 709/227, 709/230, 709/236, 709/246, 709/203
• US Class Current: 709/203
• CPC Class Codes: G06Q 10/107 Computer-aided management of electronic mailing [e-mailing]
• CPC Class Codes: H04L 51/066 Format adaptation, e.g. format conversion or compression
• CPC Class Codes: H04L 51/212 using filtering or selective blocking
• CPC Class Codes: H04L 51/214 using selective forwarding

Abstract

An electronic message forwarding system selectively forwards information to a plurality of different receiving device types. One or more user defined filters filter incoming messages, route the messages, and send the routed message to appropriate form converters to convert the message into a form appropriate to the receiving device type, such as e-mail, pager, facsimile, or telephone forwarding. In a preferred embodiment, a plurality of filters, router, and form converters may be used to perform a message classification, channel selection, and channel output control function.

Claims

1. An information forwarding system for automatically forwarding electronic messages to a plurality of destinations, comprising:

a program command module to enter user-defined criteria for selecting and forwarding messages to said plurality of destinations;

a classifier, said classifier including a plurality of filters that may be programmed using said user-defined criteria to select information to be forwarded;

a channel selector module having a plurality of routers, said plurality of routers including one router linked to the output of one said filter of said classifier, each said router containing forwarding information for a corresponding filter; and

a channel output controller having a plurality of form converters, one form converter of said channel output linked to one corresponding said router of said channel selector module;

wherein each said form converter of said channel output controller converts filtered messages from one filter routed by one router into a form suitable for the destination to which the filtered message is to be forwarded to.

2. The information forwarding system of claim 1, wherein each said filter is configurable and includes user definable criteria based upon the source of the information.

3. The information forwarding system of claim 2, wherein each said filter further comprises a keyword search engine utilizing user-input keywords to filter messages.

4. The information forwarding system of claim 3, wherein one message may be forwarded to a plurality of different destinations and the information is converted into a form appropriate for each receiving device type.

5. The information forwarding system of claim 4, wherein the information is forwarded according to a time schedule defined by the user.

6. The information forwarding system of claim 2, wherein each said filter utilizes a user profile to filter information.

7. The information forwarding system of claim 1, further comprising a programmable information collector to collect information from the world wide web and send said information as a message to said computer.

8. The information forwarding system of claim 7, wherein said programmable information collector is a news clipping program.

9. The information forwarding system of claim 8, wherein the user may set the frequency at which articles are clipped from a plurality of user-defined web-sites.

10. The information forwarding system of claim 1, wherein said destinations include an e-mail address, a pager, a facsimile machine, and a telephone.

11. The information forwarding system of claim 10, wherein the information is forwarded according to a time schedule defined by the user.

12. An information forwarding system for automatically forwarding electronic messages and data to a plurality of destinations, comprising:

a filter configured to select input messages to be forwarded based upon a user defined filter criteria;

a router that may be programmed with forwarding information to determine the destination of the forwarded messages, said router receiving filtered messages from said filter; and

a form converter linked to said router;

wherein said form converter converts filtered messages routed to said form converter into a form suitable for the destination to which the message is to be forwarded to.

13. The information forwarding system of claim 12, wherein said destinations include an e-mail address, a pager, a facsimile machine, and a telephone.

14. The information forwarding system of claim 13, wherein said filter includes a keyword search engine.

15. The information forwarding system of claim 14, further comprising a programmable information collector to acquire information from the world wide web to be processed as electronic messages.

16. The information forwarding system of claim 12, further comprising a plurality of filters, router, and form converters, wherein each output of each said filter is linked by a corresponding router to a corresponding form converter.

17. The information forwarding system of claim 16, wherein each said information form converter includes means to link routed messages to information form conversion modules.

18. The information forwarding system of claim 17, wherein each router has subrouters to link filtered messages to an appropriate form conversion module.

19. An information forwarding system for automatically forwarding electronic messages to e-mail address destinations and non e-mail destinations, comprising:

programmable filter means using user-defined criteria to select messages to be forwarded;

programmable router means to route filtered messages; and

converter means to convert said filtered messages into a format suitable for the intended forwarding device.

20. The information forwarding system of claim 19, further comprising:

programmable message collector means for collecting articles from the world wide web that are to be forwarded.

21. A method of forwarding electronic messages received by a computer from a server, comprising the steps of:

a) providing a message forwarding system comprising user definable filters to classify the incoming messages, where filtered messages from each filter are routed by a router to a form converter that converts the incoming message into a form suitable for transmission according to the receiving device type to which the message is being forwarded;

b) inputting filter criteria for each said filter, said filter criteria including source indicia and keywords; and

c) inputting forwarding information for each said router, said forwarding information including forwarding addresses(es), receiving device type(s), and time intervals during which information is to be forwarded.

22. The method of forwarding electronic messages of claim 21, wherein the method further comprises the steps of:

d) providing a programmable information collector for acquiring information from a local server or the world web and sending said information to said computer as an incoming message;

e) inputting keywords and access times for said programmable information collector to search a server for articles of interest.