USOO7716295B2 (12) United States Patent (10) Patent No.: US 7,716.295 B2 Wilson (45) Date of Patent: May 11, 2010 (54) RECIPIENT CLASSIFICATION 6,789,107 B1 9/2004 Bates et al. MANAGEMENT UTILITY FOR E-MAIL 6,915,332 B1 7/2005 Zdepski REPLIES 6,970,907 B1 * 1 1/2005 Ullmann et al. ............. TO9,206 7,051,075 B1* 5/2006 Machino et al. ... ... 709,206 75 2004/0064734 A1* 4/2004 Ehrlich ............. ... 713,201 (75) Inventor: Jeff K. Wilson, Austin, TX (US) 2004/0221012 A1* 11/2004 Heumesser ... TO9,206 2005/0076240 A1* 4/2005 Appleman ..... ... 713,201 (73) Assignee: International Business Machines 2006/0277263 A1* 12/2006 Daniels et al. ... 709,206 Corporation, Armonk, NY (US) 2007/0016644 A1 1/2007 Corona .......... ... TO9,206 - 2008/0086530 A1* 4/2008 Gandhi et al. ......... ... 709,206 (*) Notice: Subject to any site the t 2008/0120556 A1* 5/2008 Bedingfield et al. ......... 715/752 patent 1s extended or adjusted under U.S.C. 154(b) by 573 days. * cited by examiner Primary Examiner Viet Vu (21) Appl. No.: 11/621,151 (74) Attorney, Agent, or Firm—Jill Poimboeuf, IBM; Scott (22) Filed1C an. 9,9, 2007 Charles Richardson; The Brevetto Law Group 57 ABSTRACT (65) Prior Publication Data (57) Methods and Systems are provided for managing the reply US 2008/O16836O A1 Jul. 10, 2008 recipients field of a reply e-mail. In response to creating a (51) Int. Cl reply e-mail the recipients are displayed in a format conve Goof i3/00 (2006.01) nient for specifying their recipient classification. Typical 52) U.S. C 709/206 recipient classifications include reply recipients (Reply To), (58). FiField id ofic Classification - - - - - ificati- - - - - Search-s - - - - - - - h- - .................- - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - 709f2O6 s carbon(BCC) and/orcopy recipients file carbon (CC), copy blindrecipients carbon (FCC). copy The recipients recipi 709/217, 219, 223 ent classification for each e-mail address may be selected by See application file for complete search history. an input from a user, such as mouse click, without the need to (56) References Cited cut and paste e-mail addresses. The recipient classification display is updated in response to detecting a user selection, U.S. PATENT DOCUMENTS and an optional control is provided to specify the remaining 5,768,505 A 6, 1998 Gilchrist et al. unassigned recipients to one recipient status. 6,301.245 B1 10/2001 Luzeski et al. 6,633,630 B1 10/2003 Owens et al. 16 Claims, 6 Drawing Sheets Manage E-Mail Recipients janegacme.com bobGacme.com steveGacme.com frankGacme.com joeGacme.com janeGBacme.com bobcacme.com steveGacme.com frankGacme.com joeGacme.com janeGacme.com Remaining bobgacme.com steveGacme.com O frankGiacme.com sa joeGacme.com Cance U.S. Patent May 11, 2010 Sheet 1 of 6 US 7,716.295 B2 Interfaces Storage Memory 1001. O Fig. 1 U.S. Patent May 11, 2010 Sheet 2 of 6 US 7,716.295 B2 20 203 Detect Editing or Creation of Reply Email based on Existing Email 207 205 Handle Email in Manage Conventional Recipients Manner NO 211 Specify Display Current Recipient Recipient Classifications Classifications Finished Send Classification Cancel or Specifying Edit CANCEL 219 Send Email Fig. 2 U.S. Patent May 11, 2010 Sheet 3 of 6 US 7,716.295 B2 Manage E-Mail Recipients janeGDaCme.Com bobQ)acme.com steveG2acme.com frankGacme.Com joeG)acme.Com 309 janeGDaCme.com bobGDacme.com steveGDacme.com frankGDacme.com joeCoacme.com janeCDacme.com bobG)acme.com O SteveGDacme.com frankGlacme.com y joeGDacme.Com DOne Cancel Fig. 3A U.S. Patent May 11, 2010 Sheet 4 of 6 US 7,716.295 B2 Manage E-Mail Recipients janeCDacme.Com Remaining bobGDacme.com steveGDacme.com frankG)acme.com joeG2acme.com janeGacme.com Remaining bobG2acme.Com SteveGacme.com frankGDacme.com joeGDacme.com janeGDacme.Com bobOacme.Com steveGDacme.com O frankGlacme.com joeGDacme.com Uncategorized Recipients O steveGDacme.com 315 Fig. 3B U.S. Patent May 11, 2010 Sheet 5 of 6 US 7,716.295 B2 Manage E-Mail Recipients aS gå9Na c O t janeGacme.com O bobC2acme.com O. O. SteveGacme.Com O O frankG2acme.Com O joeG2aCme.Com Fig. 3C U.S. Patent May 11, 2010 Sheet 6 of 6 US 7,716.295 B2 Manage E-Mail Recipients team Fig. 3D US 7,716,295 B2 1. 2 RECIPIENT CLASSIFICATION FIGS. 3A-D depict exemplary configurations for accepting MANAGEMENT UTILITY FOR E-MAIL a user input to specify a recipient classification. REPLIES DETAILED DESCRIPTION BACKGROUND FIG. 1 depicts an exemplary system 100 for practicing 1. Field various embodiments of the invention. FIG. 1 shows a desk The present invention relates to electronic communication, top computer system 140, a notebook computer 150 (some and more specifically systems and methods of communicat times called a laptop) and a wireless device 160 which may be ing via e-mail. 10 embodied as a cellular telephone, a two-way pager, or other 2. Background like type of wireless device for sending and receiving e-mail. Today e-mail is a widely accepted a form of communica These devices are included in the disclosure for illustration tion in most businesses and households. The vast majority of purposes only. In practice any device capable of sending and people who own computers or have Internet access use e-mail receiving e-mail may be configured to implement various to communicate on a regular basis. E-mails can be the primary 15 embodiments of the invention. The communication device Source of communication for businesses. Quite often a person 120 depicts a block diagram with exemplary elements often who receives an email will be one of many listed on the included in the desktop computer system 140, the notebook e-mail's distribution list. If the person wants to reply to the computer 150 or the wireless device 160. email's group of recipients, or only some of the other recipi Each of the devices depicted in FIG.1—the desktop com ents but not all of them, it can take considerable effort to cut puter system 140, the notebook computer 150, the wireless and paste all the recipient’s email addresses into the proper device 160, and the communication device 120 are config place designated on the email. It sometimes occurs that the ured to send and receive e-mail. E-mail is often sent via the person wants to reply to one or more of the recipients, but in Internet 130, as shown in FIG. 1, but may be sent using any a different manner than they originally received the email. For Suitable type of network or communication connection example, the person wants to reply to one or more of the 25 known to those of ordinary skill in the art. The desktop com recipients with a carbon copy (CC) of the email or a blind puter system 140, the notebook computer 150 and the com carbon copy (BCC), even though these people had previously munication device 120 are shown as being connected by been primary recipients (Reply To) of the original email. This wired connection to the Internet 130. The wireless device 160 can be very time consuming for people who receive and reply is shown connected to the Internet via a wireless link Such as to dozens of group e-mails per day to make Such changes in 30 a cellular telephone link or a two-way pager link. These their reply emails. devices, or any equivalent devices used to practice the inven What is needed is an e-mail application that ensures the tion, may either be connected by a wired connection, by a sender of an e-mail is included in any Subsequent replies to wireless connection, or may be connected using a combina the e-mail forwarded e-mails based on the sender's original tion of wired and wireless links. e-mail. 35 The communication device 120 may include typical infor mation handling system hardware such as the processor 101. SUMMARY The processor 101 may be implemented as a central process ing unit (CPU) containing circuitry or other logic configured Embodiments disclosed herein address the above stated to perform or control the processes, steps and activities needs by providing systems, methods and computer Software 40 involved in practicing the embodiments disclosed herein. The for managing the recipient classifications of a reply e-mail. processor 101 may be embodied as either a microprocessor or Various embodiments display the recipient information for an application specific integrated circuit (ASIC), may be a each of the e-mail addresses while the recipient classifica combination of two or more distributed processors, or any tions are being managed. The recipient information includes other circuitry or logic capable of carrying out commands or an identifier Such as an e-mail address, name or nickname of 45 instructions, for example, the commands or instructions in each recipient. The recipient information also includes a e-mail application Software or other communication soft recipient classification for each recipient. The e-mail appli ware. In various embodiments, the processor 101 may run a cation program accepts an input to specify the recipient clas computer program or routine which performs one or more of sification for a first e-mail address of the plurality of e-mail the activities depicted in FIGS. 2 and 3, or otherwise dis addresses. In some embodiments the input may be a mouse 50 cussed herein or known to those of ordinary skill in the art. click over an input area in a pop-up window. The input is The processor 101 is interconnected to internal memory accepted without need to cut and paste the recipient’s e-mail 107 and storage memory 109.