Communication terminal, and destination-address right/wrong determining method and program thereof

• US 8,090,781 B2
• Filed: 10/05/2007
• Issued: 01/03/2012
• Est. Priority Date: 11/14/2006
• Status: Expired due to Fees

• Current Assignee: Sony Ericsson Mobile Communications USA Incorporated (Sony Group Corp.)
• Original Assignee: Sony Ericsson Mobile Communications USA Incorporated (Sony Group Corp.)
• Inventors: Sano, Motonori
• Primary Examiner(s): Pwu, Jeffrey
• Assistant Examiner(s): LI, GUANG W
• Application Number:
  US11/868,165
• Publication Number:
  US 20080114846A1
• Time in Patent Office: 1,551 Days
• Field of Search: 709/206
• US Class Current: 709/206
• CPC Class Codes: G06Q 10/107 Computer-aided management of electronic mailing [e-mailing]
• CPC Class Codes: H04L 51/216 Handling conversation history, e.g. grouping of messages in sessions or threads
• CPC Class Codes: H04L 51/23 Reliability checks, e.g. acknowledgments or fault reporting
• CPC Class Codes: H04L 51/48 Message addressing, e.g. address format or anonymous messages, aliases

Abstract

A communication terminal having an email message sending-and-receiving function includes an email-message history information storing unit configured to store email-message information of at least a sent email message as email-message history information, an intended-to-be-sent email message storing unit configured to store email-message information of an intended-to-be-sent email message, the intended-to-be-sent email message being an email message which is going to be sent, as intended-to-be-sent email message information, a destination-address right/wrong determining unit configured to determine whether a destination address of the intended-to-be-sent email message is right or wrong by comparing the email-message history information with the intended-to-be-sent email message information, and a unit configured to send, if the destination address is determined to be wrong, a notification of the wrong destination address to a user and to request the user to check the destination address.

Claims

1. A communication terminal having an email message sending-and-receiving function, the communication terminal comprising:

means for storing email-message information of at least a sent email message as email-message history information;

storing means for storing email-message information of an intended-to-be-sent email message that is being prepared at said communication terminal, the intended-to-be-sent email message being an email message which has yet to be sent from the communication terminal, as intended-to-be-sent email message information;

means for determining at the communication terminal whether a destination address of the intended-to-be-sent email message is right or wrong by comparing the email-message history information with at least a message body of the intended-to-be-sent email message information;

means for displaying a notification of the wrong destination address to a user if the destination address is determined to be wrong and requesting the user to check the destination address prior to sending the email message from the communication terminal; and

means for extracting keywords per target address from the email-message history information and extracting keywords from the message body of the intended-to-be-sent email message,

wherein the means for determining determines whether the destination address of the intended-to-be-sent email message is right or wrong by comparing the keywords extracted from the intended-to-be-sent email message information with those extracted from the email-message history information.

2. The communication terminal according to claim 1, wherein the means for extracting keywords adds weight information to each of the keywords per target address extracted from the intended-to-be-sent email message information on the basis of a frequency of appearance of the keyword per message when the keywords per address are extracted, and the means for determining uses the weight information at the time of the comparison.

3. The communication terminal according to claim 1, wherein whether the destination address of the intended-to-be-sent email message is determined to be right or wrong by comparing the email-message history information of a target address which is the same as the destination address of the intended-to-be-sent email message with the intended-to-be-sent email message information.

4. The communication terminal according to claim 1, wherein whether the destination address of the intended-to-be-sent email message is determined to be right or wrong by comparing the email-message history information of a plurality of target addresses with the intended-to-be-sent email message information regardless of whether or not each of the target addresses is the same as the destination address of the intended-to-be-sent email message.

5. The communication terminal according to claim 1, wherein if a keyword implying a person'"'"'s name is included in the first several lines of a message body of the intended-to-be-sent email message and if the keyword exists in the keywords corresponding to the target address, the degree of email-message correlation for the target address is increased by a predetermined amount or a predetermined ratio.

6. The communication terminal according to claim 1, further comprising means for providing, if another target address has a higher degree of email-message correlation than the target address which is the same as the destination address, the target address having the higher degree of email-message correlation as a destination candidate to a user.

7. A destination-address right/wrong determining method used in a communication terminal having an email message sending-and-receiving function, the method comprising the steps of:

storing email-message information of at least a sent email message as email-message history information;

storing email-message information of an intended-to-be-sent email message that is being prepared at said communication terminal, the intended-to-be-sent email message being an email message which has yet to be sent from the communication terminal, as intended-to-be-sent email message information;

determining with a processor at the communication terminal whether a destination address of the intended-to-be-sent email message is right or wrong by comparing the email-message history information with at least a message body of the intended-to-be-sent email message information; and

displaying a notification of the wrong destination address to a user if the destination address is determined to be wrong and requesting the user to check the destination address prior to sending the email message from the communication terminal; and

extracting keywords per target address from the email message history information and extracting keywords from the message body of the intended-to-be-sent email messages, wherein

said determining determines whether the destination address of the intended-to-be-sent email message is right or wrong by comparing the keywords extracted from the intended-to-be-sent email message information with those extracted from the email message history information, and

said determining obtains a degree of email-message correlation between the intended-to -be-sent email message and at least a sent email message sent to a target address by the comparison, and determines whether the destination address of the intended-to-be-sent email message is right or wrong on the basis of the degree of email-message correlation.

8. A communication terminal having an email message sending-and-receiving function, the communication terminal comprising:

an email-message history information storing unit configured to store email-message information of at least a sent email message as email-message history information;

an intended-to-be-sent email message storing unit configured to store email-message information of an intended-to-be-sent email message that is being prepared at the communication terminal, the intended-to-be-sent email message being an email message which has yet to be sent from the communication terminal, as intended-to-be-sent email message information;

a destination-address right/wrong determining unit having a processor programmed to determine whether a destination address of the intended-to-be-sent email message is right or wrong by comparing the email-message history information with the intended-to-be-sent email message information; and

a display unit configured to display a notification of the wrong destination address to a user if the destination address is determined to be wrong and to request the user to check the destination address prior to sending the email message from the communication terminal wherein

the processor is programmed to extract keywords per target address from the email message history information and extracts keywords from the message body of the intended-to-be-sent email message, wherein

the destination-address right/wrong determining unit, determines whether the destination address of the intended-to-be-sent email message is right or wrong by comparing the keywords extracted from the intended-to-be-sent email message information with those extracted from the email-message history information, and

obtains a degree of email-message correlation between the intended-to-be-sent email message and at least a sent email message sent to a target address by the comparison, and determines whether the destination address of the intended-to-be-sent email message is right or wrong on the basis of the degree of email-message correlation.