Method and system for managing electronic mail

• US 8,280,965 B2
• Filed: 12/10/2008
• Issued: 10/02/2012
• Est. Priority Date: 12/10/2008
• Status: Active Grant

• Current Assignee: Kyndryl Incorporated
• Original Assignee: International Business Machines Corporation
• Inventors: DellaFera, Ciaran A., Rojahn, Tom O.
• Primary Examiner(s): Lin, Kenny
• Assistant Examiner(s): Taha, Shaq
• Application Number:
  US12/332,038
• Publication Number:
  US 20100146059A1
• Time in Patent Office: 1,392 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]

Abstract

A method and system for managing email between a sender and a recipient wherein the method and system provide the recipient with control over routing an email message, wherein the control includes predefining directions to be executed upon the receipt of an email message, and wherein the directions are dependent upon the properties of the email message. The recipient may enable or disable the control at any time.

Claims

1. A method for managing email, the method comprising the following steps:

setting, by an email recipient, a set of predefined direction(s) comprising at least a first condition and a first response associated with the first condition;

after the setting step, receiving an email communication, from a sender, in an inbox of the recipient'"'"'s email account, with the email communication having email properties associated with it; and

selectively performing the first response only if the email properties of the email received at the receiving step meet the first condition;

wherein the first condition is one of the following conditions;

(i) the recipient'"'"'s email address is in a predetermined addressee field of the email communication, and (ii) the recipient is a sole receiver of the email communication;

wherein the first response is one of the following;

(i) pick up the email from A recipient'"'"'s server mailbox and back to the sender with the option of not posting the email into the recipient'"'"'s server mailbox;

(ii) allow the sender a chance to send a text message to the recipient, and (iii) allow the sender to send a voice mail to the recipient.

2. A non-transitory computer program product encoded in a tangible computer readable medium, the program code configured to cause the computer to perform the method comprising:

setting, by an email recipient, recipient contact option to be applied to the recipient'"'"'s email account;

after the setting step, receiving an email communication, from a sender, in an inbox of the recipient'"'"'s email account; and

processing the email communication received at the receiving step by applying the recipient contact option;

wherein the recipient contact option is programmed to perform one of the following actions;

(i) allowing sender to send a text message to the recipient over a text messaging system;

or (ii) allowing the sender to send a voice mail to the recipient over a telephone system.

3. The non-transitory computer program product of claim 2 wherein the computer readable medium is in the form of one of the following:

a disk;

a random access memory;

a read-only memory; and

a compact disk.