JP2003308280A - System for selecting and receiving e-mail and method thereof - Google Patents

Abstract

<P>PROBLEM TO BE SOLVED: To simplify the management of a mail list, also not to eliminate mail considered as unwanted mail by a user but to make it possible to select and receive only needed mail. <P>SOLUTION: A sender address extracting means S11 of a server S1 extracts a transmission address and a date transmitted to each terminal and stores them as a set of each other. A received mail selection image preparing means S12 temporally and sequentially arranges these sets, and adds a reception button for the user selecting and receiving mail to each of the sets to prepare a received mail selection image. The user uses an inherent URL predistributed by an individual URL distributing means S13 to refer to the received mail selection image and can thereby selectively receive only mail from a sender considered as a needed one. <P>COPYRIGHT: (C)2004,JPO

Description

Detailed Description of the Invention

[0001]

BACKGROUND OF THE INVENTION 1. Field of the Invention The present invention relates to an electronic mail selective receiving system and method, and more particularly to an electronic mail selective receiving in a communication system in which electronic mails are exchanged between a plurality of terminals via a server and a communication network. It is related to the method.

[0002]

2. Description of the Related Art E-mail as a means for transmitting information is generally widespread and used by many people.
It is used not only in information processing terminals such as PCs (personal computers) but also in mobile phone terminals. In this mobile phone terminal, when an e-mail is sent to the terminal, the telecommunication carrier (carrier) that provides the mobile phone service sends the e-mail directly to the terminal. It has become.

[0003]

In such a mobile phone terminal, the problem of unsolicited email has recently become a social problem. In the existing e-mail receiving method, an e-mail addressed to a user of one mobile phone terminal may be transmitted from a user of another mobile phone terminal and a user of a terminal such as a PC. In this case, Even if the user of the one mobile phone terminal wants to receive only the email from the user of the particular mobile phone terminal,
Since the existing electronic mail system receives all electronic mails, there is a problem that a large amount of unnecessary electronic mails (junk mails) that the user does not want to receive are received.

Various techniques have been proposed as measures to prevent the reception of such unsolicited emails. As one example, referring to Japanese Patent Laid-Open No. 11-203216, a Web mail filter is provided separately from a mail server. With this filter, a web page showing selectable functions is presented to the client, and the client gives a necessary instruction on this web page to send a mail message to the web mail filter. It is designed to give instructions regarding processing. Then, the Web mail filter processes a mail on the mail server as a pseudo mailer according to an instruction from the client, converts it into an HTML sentence format which can be read by a browser, and supplies it to the client.

In this case, since the main instruction of the client on the Web page is the junk mail, a delete button is provided and the junk mail is deleted by this delete button. Therefore, once the client deletes the mail, the mail disappears, and if the delete button is operated by mistake, it cannot be recovered. In other words, if you focus on deleting junk mail, you can delete it, but even if it is not junk mail, you may not want to see it at the time of receiving it, or you may want to need it later. Will not be able to see because it has already been deleted.

Further, in the above-mentioned conventional technique, management of the mail list is not simplified and complicated, and
There is a drawback that the display file of the mail list needs to be sent to the client. Furthermore, there is a drawback in that a top menu is provided for displaying this mail list, so that it is necessary to add this top menu in addition to this mail list.

An object of the present invention is to make the management of a mail list extremely simple, and to allow a user to selectively receive only necessary mails without deleting unnecessary ones. And to provide a method thereof.

Another object of the present invention is to eliminate the necessity of a top menu and the like, and to select and receive only an e-mail required by a user simply by referring to a URL and an e-mail selective receiving system thereof. Is to provide a method.

[0009]

An electronic mail selective receiving system according to the present invention is an electronic mail selective receiving system in a communication system in which electronic mails are exchanged between a plurality of terminals via a server and a communication network. Then, the server, as a set of means for extracting the sender address and date of the mail sent to the terminal corresponding to each terminal, and the sender address and date extracted as these, And a means for creating a received mail selection screen in which a reception button for allowing the user to select reception of a corresponding mail is added to each of the groups while arranging in order of reception corresponding to each of the terminals. URL (Uniform Resource) specified in advance
Locator) is used to refer to the received mail selection screen. The terminal is a mobile phone terminal.

Further, the server is
The device includes means for notifying beforehand a URL for referring to the received mail selection screen, and means for subsequently disabling the received button in response to a user's selection operation of the reception button on the received mail selection screen. Furthermore, it is characterized in that it further comprises means for deleting a set that has passed a preset period from among the sets on the received mail selection screen.

An electronic mail selective receiving method according to the present invention comprises:
A method for receiving and selecting electronic mail in a communication system, wherein electronic mail is exchanged between a plurality of terminals via a server and a communication network, wherein the server transmits the mail sent to the terminal. A step of extracting the sender address and date corresponding to each terminal, and arranging the extracted sender address and date as a set in the order of reception corresponding to each terminal, and the user A step of creating a received mail selection screen in which a reception button for making a reception selection is added to each of these sets, and a URL (Uniform Resource Loc) specified in advance in the terminal is included.
ator) to refer to the received mail selection screen.

Further, in the server, a URL for referring to the received mail selection screen for the terminal.
In advance, and further comprising the step of disabling the reception button in the server in response to the user's selection operation of the reception button on the reception mail selection screen. . Furthermore, the server is characterized by including a step of deleting, from among the respective groups on the received mail selection screen, a group after a preset period has elapsed.

The operation of the present invention will be described. At the server
The sender address and date of the mail sent to each terminal are extracted and managed corresponding to each terminal, and the extracted sender address and date are arranged as a set in the order of reception and the user is applicable. A reception button for making a mail reception selection is added to each of these groups to create a reception mail selection screen. The user can selectively receive (download) only the mail he / she wants to receive by referring to this received mail selection screen using the URL specified in advance using his / her terminal. Becomes

On the mail server side, it is only necessary to extract the sender address and date of the mail and manage them in the order in which they are received, and complicated management is not required. In addition, since the user can refer to the mail list (sender address and date) addressed to himself using the URL specified in advance, it is necessary to send the display file of the menu list from the server or to add an additional menu such as the top menu. Nor.

[0015]

BEST MODE FOR CARRYING OUT THE INVENTION Embodiments of the present invention will be described below with reference to the drawings. FIG. 1 is a system block diagram of an embodiment of the present invention, which is a mobile phone terminal R1, A1 to A3 that has an e-mail transmission / reception function and can refer to a Web screen
And terminals P1 and P2 such as PCs, and a server S1 having a mail server function and a function of browsing a received electronic mail on a Web screen. These are interconnected by mobile communication networks N1, N2 and the Internet I1.

The server S1 is a sender address extracting means S1.
1, received mail selection screen creating means S12, individual UR
L distribution means S13. First, the individual URL delivering means S13 will be described. Individual URL distribution means S
Reference numeral 13 is for delivering an email address unique to the user (user) and a URL for referring to the received email selection screen to the email user in this system.

FIG. 2 shows an operation flow of the individual URL distributing means S13. When a user applies for an electronic mail address (step S101), the user is notified of a unique electronic mail address and ( In step S102), a unique URL required for the user to refer to the received mail selection screen is notified (step S103). The process shown in FIG. 2 is a process necessary as a precondition for implementing the present invention.

The sender address extracting means S11 operates according to the operation flow shown in FIG. That is, as shown in FIG. 4, the sender address and the reception date are extracted from the header part of the electronic mail that arrives at the server S1 (steps 201 to S203), and the extracted sender address and the reception date are extracted. Further, the whole part of the electronic mail is stored and managed as a set in association with the serial number (step S204).

The received mail selection screen creating means S12 operates according to the operation flow shown in FIG.
It has a function to create a received mail selection screen as shown in. First, the serial number (number in ascending order from 1) is set in the serial number area of the received mail selection screen (step S30).
1). Then, the sender address and the reception date extracted and stored and managed by the sender address extracting means S11 are set in the sender address area and the date area of the received mail selection screen, respectively (step S302,
S303). After that, a receive button is created in the receive button area of the receive mail selection screen so that the entire electronic mail linked with the sender address and the serial number is linked with the receive button (step S304).

It is assumed that, when the user who is the recipient of the electronic mail pushes this receive button, the electronic mail concerned is received (downloaded) as a normal electronic mail. Further, the received mail selection screen creating means S12 has a function of performing post-processing (step S305). Details of this post-processing S305 are shown in the flow chart of FIG.

Referring to FIG. 7, when the user presses the receive button on the selection screen for the received mail, the reception invalid state is set so that the button cannot be pressed again (step S306). Further, based on the reception date, when the valid period has elapsed, all the records that have elapsed are deleted from the received mail selection screen (step S307). This valid period is a period set on the server side in order to automatically delete the received mail on the server side when a certain period has elapsed. This is the same period as the valid period specified by the automatic deletion function for received emails that is provided with normal mail servers. That is, it is time to delete the received mail in the server S1, and it is assumed that the record of the received mail is also deleted from the received mail selection screen.

The operation of the embodiment will be described below with reference to specific examples. In this example, each user of the mobile phone terminals A1 to A3 and the terminals P1 and P2 such as PCs shown in FIG. 1 sends a user of the mobile phone terminal R1 from A1 to A1 → A2 → A3 → P1 → P2. The case of sending e-mail in the order of (time) will be described.
It should be noted that each mail address on the sending side is shown in FIG. 8, and for the user of the mobile phone terminal R1, the server S
URL (http: // www. △. △ / R1 for referring to the received mail selection screen by the individual URL distributing means S13
/) Has been distributed in advance.

First, when the user of the mobile phone terminal A1 sends an e-mail to the user of the mobile phone terminal R1,
The mail reaches the server S1. When the mail arrives at the server S1, first, in the sender address extracting means S11, "Fro" in the header part of the arrived e-mail is sent.
m: "(see FIG. 4) is searched, and the sender address is extracted thereafter. Also, the reception date of the electronic mail is extracted from the header of the electronic mail.

In this case, the extracted sender address, reception date, and the entire electronic mail are linked by serial numbers.
Here, the entire e-mail is the entire e-mail and includes both the header and the body.

The received mail selection screen creating means S12 of the server S1 creates an image (indicated by 1 in FIG. 6) of one line of the received mail selection screen shown in FIG. First,
The sender address extracted by the sender address extracting means S11 and the serial number used for the link of the entire electronic mail are set in the serial number area of the received mail selection screen (FIG. 6).

Next, the sender address extracted by the sender address extracting means S11 is displayed on the received mail selection screen (FIG. 6).
Set in the sender address area of. Then, the reception date extracted by the sender address extraction means S11 is set in the date area of the received mail selection screen (FIG. 6).

Furthermore, a receive button image in the receive button area of the receive mail selection screen (FIG. 6) is created, and the entire email linked with the sender address, the receive date and the serial number set above is received by the receive button. Associate so that when you press, the entire email is received (downloaded) as a regular email.

Similarly, the mobile phone terminal A2 and the mobile phone terminal A are sequentially arranged so that the reception date of the electronic mail becomes the same as that displayed on the received mail selection screen (FIG. 6).
3. When the mail is transmitted from the terminal P1 and the terminal P2 to the mobile phone terminal R1, the above processing is repeated, and finally the received mail selection screen shown in FIG. 6 is created.

Here, the user of the mobile phone terminal R1 who is the recipient of the mail receives the individual URL from the administrator of the server S1.
The received mail selection screen is referred to by using the URL (http: // www. Δ. Δ / R1 /) for referencing the received mail selection screen which is given in advance by the distribution means S13.

Now, if the user of the mobile phone terminal R1 who is the recipient of the mail knows only the user of the mobile phone terminal A1 and thinks that all the mails sent from other mobile phone terminals or terminals are unnecessary, On the incoming mail selection screen that is currently being referenced, search for the address of the user of the mobile phone terminal A1 and press the receive button on the same line as that address, and only the e-mail sent by the user of the mobile phone terminal A1 will be displayed normally. It can be received as an email.

As described above, the recipient of the electronic mail can receive only the necessary electronic mail as the normal electronic mail. Further, the post-processing S305 (see FIGS. 5 and 7) of the received mail selection screen creating means S12 here makes the received button once pressed invalid.
Step 306), the receiving button in 1 of FIG. 6 that is pressed is disabled and cannot be pressed, so that the same mail is not received twice.

Further, step S307 of post-processing S305.
As shown in FIG. 7, when the valid period has elapsed, all the records that have passed are deleted. Now, to simplify the explanation, the effective period is set to 2 days, and from the situation of FIG.
Considering the case of 4), it becomes as shown in Fig. 9, and the records of received mails and the records of unreceived mails are deleted all at once, so there are too many records and received mails The record on the selection screen (FIG. 6) does not increase forever. The valid period can be set arbitrarily.

In the above embodiment, as shown in FIG.
We have considered a system for sending e-mail from one mobile phone terminal and two terminals to one mobile phone terminal, but these are generally L mobile phone terminals from N mobile phone terminals and M mobile terminals.
Even if it replaces with the system which transmits to each mobile telephone terminal, it is materialized (L, M, N are natural numbers).

In the above embodiment, the case where the receiving side terminal is a portable telephone terminal is described. In the case of a mobile phone terminal, the electronic mail is directly sent from the carrier to the terminal as described in the section of the prior art, so the present invention is extremely effective, but it is applied to a terminal such as a PC. However, in addition to the easy management of the mail list on the mail server side, the user can easily select and receive only the necessary mail.

[0035]

The first effect of the present invention is that when a receiver of an electronic mail receives an electronic mail sent to himself / herself using a mobile phone terminal, only the necessary electronic mail is normally sent. It is to selectively receive it as an e-mail. The reason is that before receiving an e-mail as a normal e-mail, the e-mail sent to the recipient in advance can be received by referring to the screen that displays a list of sender addresses that correspond one-to-one. This is because the e-mail to be sent can be selected. Therefore, unlike the method of deleting the electronic mail, the user can receive only the mail that he / she really needs, so that the mail is prevented from being deleted carelessly and by mistake.

Further, management of mails on the server side is extremely simplified. The reason is that the sender address and date are only linked and managed in the order of reception.

Further, the user can select the reception of the necessary mail simply by referring to the received mail selection screen using the URL. The reason is that the unique URL is distributed to the user in advance, and the user can select the received mail only by referring to the screen using the unique URL.

[Brief description of drawings]

FIG. 1 is a system diagram of an embodiment of the present invention.

FIG. 2 is an operation flow of an individual URL distributing means S13 of FIG.

3 is an operation flow of a sender address extracting means S11 of FIG.

FIG. 4 is a diagram for explaining an example of an extracting operation of sender address extracting means S11.

5 is an operation flow of a received mail selection screen creating means S12 of FIG.

FIG. 6 is a diagram showing an example of a received mail selection screen.

7 is an operation flow showing details of post-processing S305 of the received mail selection screen creating means S12 of FIG.

FIG. 8 is a diagram showing an example of a sender address.

FIG. 9 is a diagram showing an example of a received mail selection screen after a predetermined period has elapsed.

[Explanation of symbols]

A1 to A4, R1 mobile phone terminals I1 Internet N1, N2 mobile communication network P1 and P2 terminals S1 server S11 sender address extracting means S12 Received mail selection screen creation means S13 Individual URL distribution means

Claims (10)

[Claims] 1. An electronic mail selection / reception system in a communication system, wherein electronic mail is exchanged between a plurality of terminals via a server and a communication network, wherein the server is transmitted to the terminal. A means for extracting the sender address and the date of the incoming mail corresponding to each of the terminals, and a set of the sender address and the date thus extracted are arranged in the order of reception corresponding to each of the terminals, and And a means for creating a received mail selection screen in which a receiving button for the user to select the reception of the corresponding mail is added to each of these groups, and the terminal has a URL (Uniform Resource Locato) designated in advance.
An electronic mail selection receiving system characterized by including means for referring to the received mail selection screen using r). 2. The electronic mail selection reception system according to claim 1, wherein the server further includes means for notifying the terminal in advance of a URL for referring to the received mail selection screen. . 3. The server according to claim 1, further comprising means for invalidating the receive button in response to a user's selection operation of the receive button on the received mail selection screen. E-mail selective receiving system described. 4. The server further includes means for deleting a set that has passed a preset period from among the sets on the received mail selection screen.
~ The e-mail selective receiving system described in any one of 3 above. 5. The electronic mail selective receiving system according to claim 1, wherein the terminal is a mobile phone terminal. 6. A method of receiving and selecting electronic mail in a communication system, wherein electronic mail is exchanged between a plurality of terminals via a server and a communication network, wherein the server sends the selected electronic mail to the terminal. The step of extracting the sender address and the date of the incoming mail corresponding to each terminal, and the sender address and the date extracted as a set are arranged in the order of reception corresponding to each terminal and the user. Creating a received mail selection screen in which a reception button for making a reception selection of the corresponding mail is added to each of these groups, and in the terminal, a URL (Uniform Resource Locato) designated in advance is specified.
An electronic mail selection receiving method comprising the step of referring to the received mail selection screen using r). 7. The electronic mail selection receiving method according to claim 6, further comprising the step of notifying the terminal in advance of a URL for referring to the received mail selection screen in the server. . 8. The server according to claim 6, further comprising the step of disabling the reception button thereafter in response to a user's selection operation of the reception button on the reception mail selection screen. How to receive the selected e-mail. 9. The server according to claim 6, further comprising the step of deleting, from the respective groups on the received mail selection screen, a group after a preset period has elapsed. E-mail selective receiving method. 10. The electronic mail selection receiving method according to claim 6, wherein the terminal is a mobile phone terminal.