Filtering e-mail messages
First Claim
1. A method of filtering incoming e-mails, the method comprising:
- on receipt of a first e-mail from a sender, creating a unique e-mail address and sending an e-mail challenge from the unique e-mail address to the sender requesting that they provide an e-mail confirmation that they are the sender of the first e-mail; and
automatically processing the first e-mail in accordance to whether or not the confirmation is received.
1 Assignment
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Accused Products
Abstract
A method and system of filtering incoming email messages is provided which, on receipt of an incoming email, issues an email challenge to the sender of the received email requesting that they in turn send an email confirmation confirming that they are the sender of the originally received email, and in which received emails are then processed further according to whether or not they are occupied by a corresponding confirmation email. Senders that provide the requested email confirmation can be added to an approved list of senders such that subsequent emails received from them are not challenged again, whilst those emails to which an email confirmation is not received in response to the issued challenge can be deleted from the user'"'"'s email system and the sender added to a blocked list of senders such that subsequent emails from a blocked sender are automatically ignored.
7 Citations
23 Claims
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1. A method of filtering incoming e-mails, the method comprising:
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on receipt of a first e-mail from a sender, creating a unique e-mail address and sending an e-mail challenge from the unique e-mail address to the sender requesting that they provide an e-mail confirmation that they are the sender of the first e-mail; and automatically processing the first e-mail in accordance to whether or not the confirmation is received. - View Dependent Claims (2, 3, 4, 5, 6, 7, 8, 9, 10, 11, 12, 13, 14, 15, 16, 17)
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- 18. An e-mail system for filtering incoming e-mails, the e-mail system comprising a data processor arranged to generate a unique e-mail address in response to receipt of a first e-mail and to issue an e-mail challenge to the sender of the first e-mail, the e-mail challenge requesting confirmation from the e-mail sender that they are the sender of the first e-mail, and arranged to further process the first e-mail in accordance with whether or not the confirmation is received, wherein the data processor is further arranged to send the e-mail challenge to the sender from the unique e-mail address.
Specification