WO2010066617A1 - Method and system for processing emails - Google Patents

Method and system for processing emails Download PDF

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Publication number
WO2010066617A1
WO2010066617A1 PCT/EP2009/066225 EP2009066225W WO2010066617A1 WO 2010066617 A1 WO2010066617 A1 WO 2010066617A1 EP 2009066225 W EP2009066225 W EP 2009066225W WO 2010066617 A1 WO2010066617 A1 WO 2010066617A1
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WO
WIPO (PCT)
Prior art keywords
email
recipient
user group
belongs
contents
Prior art date
Application number
PCT/EP2009/066225
Other languages
French (fr)
Inventor
Yan Zheng
Jing Li
Zhi Lei Yang
Xue Zhe Liu
Yue Ma
Original Assignee
International Business Machines Corporation
Ibm United Kingdom Limited
Priority date (The priority date is an assumption and is not a legal conclusion. Google has not performed a legal analysis and makes no representation as to the accuracy of the date listed.)
Filing date
Publication date
Application filed by International Business Machines Corporation, Ibm United Kingdom Limited filed Critical International Business Machines Corporation
Publication of WO2010066617A1 publication Critical patent/WO2010066617A1/en

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Classifications

    • G—PHYSICS
    • G06—COMPUTING; CALCULATING OR COUNTING
    • G06Q—INFORMATION AND COMMUNICATION TECHNOLOGY [ICT] SPECIALLY ADAPTED FOR ADMINISTRATIVE, COMMERCIAL, FINANCIAL, MANAGERIAL OR SUPERVISORY PURPOSES; SYSTEMS OR METHODS SPECIALLY ADAPTED FOR ADMINISTRATIVE, COMMERCIAL, FINANCIAL, MANAGERIAL OR SUPERVISORY PURPOSES, NOT OTHERWISE PROVIDED FOR
    • G06Q10/00—Administration; Management
    • G06Q10/10—Office automation; Time management
    • G06Q10/107—Computer-aided management of electronic mailing [e-mailing]

Definitions

  • the present invention relates to the technique of processing emails, and more particularly to a method and system for processing emails.
  • emails have become a popular interaction channel for information exchange between persons.
  • employees may receive and send a great many of emails every day. Some employees' jobs may even depend on emails, put another word, depend on interactions via emails, or depend on the tidying and reusing of information contained in the great many of emails.
  • Email Information contained in a lot of emails may be reused many times due to many reasons. For received emails, users often need to forward the emails to some other recipients. Sometimes, some information contained in these emails may be user-sensitive. The owner of the sensitive information may not expect the sensitive information to be forwarded. Therefore, it is more and more important to manage information in these emails, especially sensitive information, efficiently.
  • server software and/or client software for emails have provided many approaches for managing emails. For example, information labeled secret in a company is disallowed to be send to the exterior of the company. However, some information may be sensitive only for specific users. Hence, it is needed a personalized management for content information included in the email, so as to reuse the information in the emails and protect sensitive information effectively.
  • the present invention provides a method for processing emails, comprising: in response to forwarding an email, examining whether each recipient belongs to a first user group where a sender of the forwarded email belongs; if the each recipient belongs to the first user group where the sender of the forwarded email belongs, then forwarding the email to the each recipient; and if at least one recipient does not belong to the first user group where the sender of the forwarded email belongs, then filtering contents of the email according to a predefined rule of the first user group and forwarding the filtered email to the at least one recipient.
  • the present invention provides a method of processing emails, comprising: in response to forwarding an email, examining whether each recipient belongs to a first user group where a sender of the forwarded email belongs; if the each recipient belongs to the first user group where the sender of the forwarded email belongs, then forwarding the email to the each recipient; and if at least one recipient does not belong to the first user group where the sender of the forwarded email belongs, then filtering contents of the email according to a predefined rule of the first user group and then forwarding the filtered email to the at least one recipient.
  • the present invention provides a method further comprising: if at least one recipient does not belong to the first user group where the sender of the forwarded email belongs, then examining whether each recipient belongs to a second user group where the sender of the forwarded email belongs, wherein the second user group comprises all users in the first user group; if the each recipient belongs to the second user group where the sender of the forwarded email belongs, then filtering contents of the email according to a predefined rule of the first user group and then forwarding the filtered email to the at least one recipient; and if at least one recipient does not belong to the second user group where the sender of the forwarded email belongs, then filtering contents of the email according to predefined rules of the first and second user groups and then forwarding the filtered email to the at least one recipient.
  • the present invention provides a method wherein the step of filtering contents of the email further comprises filtering contents of the forwarded email according to tags attached to portions of the email.
  • the present invention provides a method wherein predefined tags comprise a vocabulary or phrase or a group of vocabularies or phrases attached to portions of contents of the email for classifying the contents, or the tags are used to indicate that the distribution of some portion of contents of the email is limited to a range within the first user group.
  • the present invention provides a method further comprising attaching tags to portions of contents of the email according to a predefined rule.
  • the present invention provides a method wherein the step of attaching tags to portions of contents of the email according the predefined rule comprises receiving tags to be attached to portions of contents of the email; and attaching the tags to the portions of contents of the email.
  • the present invention provides a method wherein the step of filtering contents of the email further comprises deleting email addresses in the forwarded email and/or deleting a signature portion in the forwarded email.
  • the present invention provides a method further comprising: in response to detecting that a recipient and the sender of the forwarded email do not belong to an identical user group, issuing a prompt for filtering contents of the email; and in response to the detection of predefined contents needed to be deleted, issuing another prompt.
  • the present invention provides a method further comprising: in response to forwarding the email, examining whether each cc recipient belongs to the first user group where the sender of the forwarded email belongs; if the each cc recipient belongs to the first user group where the sender of the forwarded email belongs, then forwarding the email to the each cc recipient; and if at least one cc recipient does not belong to the first user group where the sender of the forwarded email belongs, then filtering contents of the email according to a predefined rule of the first user group and then forwarding the filtered email to the at least one cc recipient.
  • the present invention provides a system of processing emails, comprising: a first determining means configured for, in response to forwarding an email, examining whether each recipient belongs to a first user group where a sender of the forwarded email belongs; a filtering means configured for, if at least one recipient does not belong to the first user group where the sender of the forwarded email belongs, then filtering contents of the email according to a predefined rule of the first user group to obtain the filtered email; and a sending means configured for, if the each recipient belongs to the first user group where the sender of the forwarded email belongs, then forwarding the email to the each recipient; if at least one recipient does not belong to the first user group where the sender of the forwarded email belongs, then forwarding the filtered email to the at least one recipient.
  • the present invention provides a system further comprising: a second determining means configured for, if at least one recipient does not belong to the first user group where the sender of the forwarded email belongs, then examining whether each recipient belongs to a second user group where the sender of the forwarded email belongs, wherein the second user group comprises users in the first user group; the filtering means is further configured for, if the each recipient belongs to the second user group where the sender of the forwarded email belongs, then filtering contents of the email according to a predefined rule of the first user group to obtain the filtered email; and the filtering means is further configured for, if at least one recipient does not belong to the second user group where the sender of the forwarded email belongs, then filtering contents of the email according to predefined rules of the first and second user groups to obtain the filtered email.
  • a second determining means configured for, if at least one recipient does not belong to the first user group where the sender of the forwarded email belongs, then examining whether each recipient belongs to a second user group where the sender
  • the present invention provides a system wherein the filtering means is further configured to filter contents of the forwarded email according to tags attached to portions of contents of the email.
  • the present invention provides a system wherein predefined tags comprise a vocabulary or phrase or a group of vocabularies or phrases attached to portions of contents of the email for classifying the contents, or the tags are used to indicate that the distribution of some portion of contents of emails is limited to a range within the first user group.
  • predefined tags comprise a vocabulary or phrase or a group of vocabularies or phrases attached to portions of contents of the email for classifying the contents, or the tags are used to indicate that the distribution of some portion of contents of emails is limited to a range within the first user group.
  • the present invention provides a system further comprising a tag attaching means for attaching tags to portions of contents of the email according to a predefined rule.
  • the present invention provides a system wherein the tag attaching means is further configured to receive tags to be attached to portions of contents of the email; and attach the tags to the portions of contents of the email.
  • the present invention provides a system wherein the filtering means is further configured for deleting email addresses in the forwarded email and/or deleting a signature portion in the forwarded email.
  • the present invention provides a system further comprising a prompting means configured for, in response to detecting that a recipient and the sender of the forwarded email do not belong to an identical user group, issuing a prompt for filtering contents of the email; and in response to the filtering means detecting predefined contents needed to be deleted, issuing another prompt.
  • a prompting means configured for, in response to detecting that a recipient and the sender of the forwarded email do not belong to an identical user group, issuing a prompt for filtering contents of the email; and in response to the filtering means detecting predefined contents needed to be deleted, issuing another prompt.
  • the present invention provides a system further comprising: the first determining means is further configured for, in response to forwarding the email, examining whether each cc recipient belongs to the first user group where the sender of the forwarded email belongs; the sending means is further configured for, if the each cc recipient belongs to the first user group where the sender of the forwarded email belongs, then forwarding the email to the each cc recipient; and the filtering means is further configured for, if at least one cc recipient does not belong to the first user group where the sender of the forwarded email belongs, then filtering contents of the email according to a predefined rule of the first user group to obtain the filtered email.
  • Fig. 1 shows a flowchart of a method for processing emails according to a preferred embodiment of the present invention
  • Fig. 2 shows a flowchart of a method for processing emails according to a preferred embodiment of the present invention
  • Fig. 3 shows a flowchart of a method for processing emails according to a preferred embodiment of the present invention.
  • Fig. 4 shows a block diagram of a system for processing emails according to a preferred embodiment of the present invention.
  • Each block of flowchart and/or block diagram and combinations of each block in the flowchart and/or block diagram can be performed by computer program instructions.
  • These computer program instructions may be provided to a processor of a general purpose computer, special purpose computer or other programmable data processing apparatus to produce a machine, such that the instructions, which are executed via the processor of the computer or other programmable data processing apparatus, create means for implementing the functions specified in the blocks of the flowchart and/or block diagrams.
  • These computer program instructions may also be stored in a computer-readable memory that can instruct a computer or other programmable data processing apparatus to function in a particular manner, such that the instructions stored in the computer-readable memory produce an article of manufacture including instruction means which implement the functions/operations specified in the blocks of the flow chart and/or block diagrams.
  • the computer program instructions may also be loaded onto a computer or other programmable data processing apparatus to cause a series of operational steps to be performed on the computer or other programmable data processing apparatus to produce a computer implemented process, such that the instructions which are executed on the computer or other programmable apparatus provide process for implementing the functions/operations specified in the blocks of the flowcharts and/or block diagrams.
  • Fig. 1 shows a flowchart of a method for processing emails according to an embodiment of the present invention.
  • a method 100 for processing emails is shown therein. The method starts at step 110.
  • an email is received.
  • the email is forwarded.
  • the email is examined whether each recipient belongs to a first user group where a sender of the forwarded email belongs.
  • each recipient belongs to a first user group where the sender of the forwarded email belongs by checking the email addresses of the recipient and the sender. It can also be examined whether each recipient belongs to a first user group where the sender of the forwarded email belongs by checking the names of the recipient and the sender.
  • step 150 if each recipient belongs to the first user group where the sender of the forwarded email belongs, then the email is forwarded.
  • the contents of the email is filtered according to a predefined rule of the first user group.
  • a predefined rule can be set to disallow some contents to be sent to the exterior of the first user group.
  • the filtered email is forwarded to the at least one recipient.
  • the method for processing emails is ended.
  • the method of the present invention can be applied to the cases that an email is forwarded to email addresses other than the addresses of recipients and carbon copied (cc) recipients in the forwarded email, including direct forwarding, adding new recipients or cc recipients when replying.
  • the processing for each recipient is also suitable for each cc recipient.
  • POP3 and MIME protocols Common emails often obey two protocols, POP3 and MIME protocols.
  • POP3 protocol Post Office Protocol - Version 3
  • MIME protocol Multipurpose Internet Mail Extensions
  • Emails transmitted to the client side generally comply with the MIME protocol.
  • MIME comprises a mail header and mail body.
  • the obtained recipients are a part of the mail header, designated as "TO" field.
  • TO a part of the mail header
  • Information of sender and cc recipients can be obtained from “From” and "CC" fields.
  • Content-Type text/plain
  • charset ISO-8859-l
  • Content-Transfer-Encoding 7bit
  • Content-Disposition inline this is a test mail.
  • the method for processing emails further comprises: in response to forwarding the email, examining whether each cc recipient and a sender of the forwarded email belong to an identical user group; if the each cc recipient and the sender of the forwarded email belong to the identical user group, then forwarding the email to the cc recipient; and if at least one cc recipient and the sender of the forwarded email do not belong to the identical group, then filtering contents of the email according to a predefined rule of the user group and forwarding the filtered email to the at least one cc recipient.
  • a method for processing emails comprising: in response to replying an email, examining whether each recipient and each cc recipient and a sender of the forwarded email belong to an identical user group; if the each recipient and each cc recipient and the sender of the forwarded email belong to an identical group, then forwarding the email to the each recipient and each cc recipient; and if at least one recipient or at least one cc recipient and the sender of the forwarded email do not belong to the same group, then filtering contents of the email according to a predefined rule of the user group and forwarding the filtered email to the at least one recipient.
  • the email can be filtered based on the predefined rule of the user group so as to delete predefined email contents and forward the filtered email to the at least one recipient.
  • the deletion of predefined email contents can be further configured to delete the signature portion of the forwarded email.
  • the signature portion of email may comprise name, position, company, telephone number and the like.
  • the signature portion may comprise a text, an image or a HTML file.
  • a particular user can determine the predefined rule for filtering through setting the signature portion. For example, a tag can be added to that portion, which indicates that information of the portion is not allowed to sent to the exterior of the user group where the user locates.
  • contents which has been attached the tag can be deleted when filtering the email.
  • the method 100 for processing emails described above can further comprise: in response to the detection that a recipient and the sender of the forwarded email do not belong to an identical user group, prompting the user to filter the email contents.
  • the predefined rule for filtering may specify that all emails should be filtered so as to delete email addresses in the forwarded email.
  • the deletion of predefined email contents may be further configured to delete the portion of contents in the forwarded email, which has been attached a predefined tag.
  • the predefined tag can comprise a vocabulary or phrase or a group of vocabularies or phrases attached to the portion of contents of emails for classifying contents.
  • the tag can be further used to indicate that some portion of the contents of email should be distributed within a particular user group only.
  • the predefined rule for filtering can specify that contents which have been attached some or some type of tag can be deleted when filtering the email.
  • a step of issuing a prompt in response to the detection of predefined contents needed to be deleted can be further comprised.
  • a user may decide delete or keep the portion of contents according to the prompt.
  • Members within a company can form a user group.
  • Members within a department of a company can form a user group as well.
  • a user can define a user group according to special requirements.
  • different filtering rules can be customized so as to filter special type of information, such as sensitive information. These filtering rules can be combined to use.
  • Sensitive information can comprise recipient, recipient list, signature portion and/or sensitive information defined by user.
  • the signature comprises the company, department, telephone number and etc.
  • a filter can be arranged on the email client to filter sensitive information.
  • the filter comprises an information processor and an information detector.
  • the information processor is for adding a tag to the sensitive information and providing an interface for users to define sensitive information by the users. Attaching tags to different portions of contents of the email can be used to classify contents of the email in order to facilitate the filtering. For example, what is within the tag can designate that the portion of information is not allowed to be forwarded or to be forwarded to the exterior of a particular user group.
  • the information detector is for identifying sensitive information by identifying the tag added by the information processor.
  • the recipient and recipient list can be detected with the key words of "recipient” and "carbon copy".
  • the address information following the "recipient” and “carbon copy” can be designated as information which is sensitive to the recipient.
  • the detector in the filter at the email client side may detect the name of the recipient with the method and filter it.
  • the signature is predefined by a user and easy to be recognized if a tag is identified.
  • a tag is a special character defined by the information processor, which is for being distinct from other characters.
  • a user can define different sensitive information based on different contact group defined by him/her. For example, a user can divide contacts into different groups as relative and colleague. Then, sensitive information such as husband, wife, parents, ID number and the like is defined for the "relative" group, while sensitive information like company name, department name, company telephone number and the like is defined for the "colleague" group.
  • the information processor provides an interface for users to facilitate inputing the user- defined sensitive information by users.
  • the detector can search through the full text and match the user-defined information with the text, so as to find whether the user-defined information occurs in the text of the email. If the detector finds user-defined sensitive information in the text, the user can decide whether to delete it.
  • Fig. 2 shows a flowchart of a method for processing emails according to another embodiment of the present invention. A method 200 for processing emails is shown therein.
  • the method starts at step 210.
  • a user sends an email to multiple users.
  • sensitive information contained in the email is identified with at least one tag. That identifying the sensitive information in the email with at least one tag may be performed by a user receiving the email or the sender of the original email.
  • the tag can indicate that the sensitive information portion is not allowed to be forwarded.
  • the at least one tag is sent to the multiple users.
  • the multiple users use the at least one tag to identify sensitive information in the email.
  • the attachment of tags can be performed manually, or contents attached the tags can be used to update the contents of the received email automatically.
  • the manner of updating contents in a calendar in the email box can be used, that is, the email for updating contents of a meeting sent later can be used to update the contents of the accepted meeting in the calendar, equivalent to the replacement of a value in a field in the email.
  • the contents of email received originally are updated based on the attached tag and the address of the corresponding contents.
  • the sensitive information in the forwarded email is deleted and the processed email is forwarded.
  • the sensitive information in the sent email is identified with a tag in time according to real requirements.
  • the tag is sent to corresponding multiple users.
  • the multiple users can use the tag to process the received email to identify the sensitive information therein.
  • the sensitive information can be deleted when forwarding.
  • the method can also facilitate users in identifying the sensitive information.
  • Fig. 3 shows a flowchart of a method for processing emails according to another embodiment of the present invention.
  • a method 300 for processing emails is shown therein. The method starts at step 310.
  • an email is received.
  • the email is forwarded.
  • step 360 it is further examined whether the each recipient belongs to a second user group where the first user group is located, and wherein the sender of the forwarded email belongs to the first user group.
  • the recipient and the sender of the forwarded email do not belong to the second user group where the first user group is located, then at step 370, the contents of the email are filtered based on predefined rules of the first and second user groups. If the recipient and the sender of the forwarded email belong to the second user group where the first user group is located, then at step 380, the contents of the email are filtered based on the predefined rule of the first user group. The method ends at step 390.
  • the first user group comprises users in a department in a company
  • the second user group comprises all users in the company.
  • the predefined rule of the second user group is an email rule of the company for sending emails to the exterior of the company
  • the predefined rule of the first user group is an email rule of the department for sending emails to the exterior of the department.
  • the company can determine the company rule for filtering emails according to real requirements, and departments in different levels within the company can determine the department rules for filtering emails according to real requirements.
  • the combination of the department rule and the company rule forms the filtering rule when emails are sent from the department to the exterior of the company.
  • some portion of sensitive information can be only distributed in the interior of the company but in the exterior of the department, and another portion of sensitive information can be only distributed in the interior of the department.
  • Fig. 4 shows a block diagram of a system for processing emails according to another embodiment of the present invention.
  • the system 400 for processing emails comprises: a first determining means 410 configured for, in response to forwarding an email, examining whether each recipient belongs to a first user group where a sender of the forwarded email belongs; a filtering means 430 configured for, if at least one recipient does not belong to the first user group where the sender of the forwarded email belongs, then filtering contents of the email according to a predefined rule of the first user group to obtain the filtered email; and a sending means 440 configured for, if the each recipient belongs to the first user group where the sender of the forwarded email belongs, then forwarding the email to the each recipient; if at least one recipient does not belong to the first user group where the sender of the forwarded email belongs, then forwarding the filtered email to the at least one recipient.
  • the system 400 for processing emails further comprises: a second determining means 420 configured for, if at least one recipient does not belong to the first user group where the sender of the forwarded email belongs, then examining whether each recipient belongs to a second user group where the sender of the forwarded email belongs, wherein the second user group comprises users in the first user group.
  • the filtering means 430 can be further configured for, if the each recipient belongs to the second user group where the sender of the forwarded email belongs, then filtering contents of the email according to a predefined rule of the first user group to obtain the filtered email; and if at least one recipient does not belong to the second user group where the sender of the forwarded email belongs, then filtering contents of the email according to predefined rules of the first and second user groups to obtain the filtered email.
  • the filtering means is further configured for filtering the contents of the forwarded email according to a tag attached to the portion of contents of the email.
  • predefined tags comprise a vocabulary or phrase or a group of vocabularies or phrases attached to portions of contents of the email for classifying the contents, or the tags are used to indicate that the distribution of some portion of contents of emails is limited to a range within the first user group.
  • the system 400 further comprises a tag attaching means for attaching a tag to the portion of contents of the email according to a predefined rule.
  • the tag attaching means is further configured to receive tags to be attached to portions of contents of the email; and attach the tags to the portions of contents of the email.
  • the filtering means is further configured for deleting email addresses in the forwarded email and/or deleting the signature portion in the forwarded email.
  • system 400 further comprises a prompting means configured for, in response to detecting that a recipient and the sender of the forwarded email do not belong to an identical user group, issuing a prompt for filtering contents of the email; and in response to the filtering menas detecting predefined contents needed to be deleted, issuing another prompt.
  • the first determining means is further configured for, in response to forwarding the email, examining whether each cc recipient belongs to the first user group where a sender of the forwarded email belongs;
  • the sending means can be further configured for, if the each cc recipient belongs to the first user group where the sender of the forwarded email belongs, then forwarding the email to the each cc recipient;
  • the filtering means can be further configured for, if at least one cc recipient does not belong to the first user group where the sender of the forwarded email belongs, then filtering contents of the email according to a predefined rule of the first user group to obtain the filtered email.
  • the present invention further provides a storage medium or signal carrier comprising instructions for executing the method of the present invention.
  • each block in the flowchart or block diagrams may represent a module, segment, or portion of code, which comprises one or more executable instructions for implementing the specified logical function(s).
  • the functions noted in the block may occur out of the order noted in the figures. For example, two blocks shown in succession may, in fact, be executed substantially concurrently, or the blocks may sometimes be executed in the reverse order, depending upon the functionality involved.
  • the present invention may be embodied as system, method or computer program product. Accordingly, the present invention may take the form of an entirely hardware embodiment, an entirely software embodiment (including firmware, resident software, micro-code, etc.) or an embodiment combining software and hardware aspects that may all generally be referred to herein as a "circuit," "module” or “system.” Furthermore, the present invention may take the form of a computer program product embodied in any tangible medium of expression having computer-usable program code embodied in the medium. Any combination of one or more computer usable or computer readable medium(s) may be utilized.
  • the computer-usable or computer-readable medium may be, for example but not limited to, an electronic, magnetic, optical, electromagnetic, infrared, or semiconductor system, apparatus, device, or propagation medium. More specific examples (a non- exhaustive list) of the computer-readable medium would include the following: an electrical connection having one or more wires, a portable computer diskette, a hard disk, a random access memory (RAM), a read-only memory (ROM), an erasable programmable read-only memory (EPROM or Flash memory), an optical fiber, a portable compact disc read-only memory (CDROM), an optical storage device, a transmission media such as those supporting the Internet or an intranet, or a magnetic storage device.
  • the computer- usable or computer-readable medium could even be paper or another suitable medium upon which the program is printed, as the program can be electronically captured, via, for instance, optical scanning of the paper or other medium, then compiled, interpreted, or otherwise processed in a suitable manner, if necessary, and then stored in a computer memory.
  • a computer-usable or computer-readable medium may be any medium that can contain, store, communicate, propagate, or transport the program for use by or in connection with the instruction execution system, apparatus, or device.
  • the computer-usable medium may include a propagated data signal with the computer-usable program code embodied therewith, either in baseband or as part of a carrier wave.
  • the computer usable program code may be transmitted using any appropriate medium, including but not limited to wireless, wireline, optical fiber cable, RF, etc.
  • Computer program code for carrying out operations of the present invention may be written in any combination of one or more programming languages, including an object oriented programming language such as Java, Smalltalk, C++ or the like and conventional procedural programming languages, such as the "C" programming language or similar programming languages.
  • the program code may execute entirely on the user's computer, partly on the user's computer, as a stand-alone software package, partly on the user's computer and partly on a remote computer or entirely on the remote computer or server.
  • the remote computer may be connected to the user's computer through any type of network, including a local area network (LAN) or a wide area network (WAN), or the connection may be made to an external computer (for example, through the Internet using an Internet Service Provider).
  • LAN local area network
  • WAN wide area network
  • Internet Service Provider for example, AT&T, MCI, Sprint, EarthLink, MSN, GTE, etc.

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Abstract

The present invention provides a methond and system for processing email. The method comprisies: in response to forwarding an email, examining whether each recipient belongs to a first user group where a sender of the forwarded email belongs; if the each recipient belongs to the first user group where the sender of the forwarded email belongs, then forwarding the email to the each recipient; and if at least one recipient does not belong to the first user group where the sender of the forwarded email belongs, then filtering contents of the email according to a predefined rule of the first user group and forwarding the filtered email to the at least one recipient.

Description

METHOD AND SYSTEM FOR PROCESSING EMAILS
FIELD OF THE INVENTION
The present invention relates to the technique of processing emails, and more particularly to a method and system for processing emails.
BACKGROUND OF THE INVENTION
Over the past two decades, computer networks, especially performances and capacities of
Internet, grow dramatically along with the rapid development of electronics technologies. Users on the network receive and send millions of emails via computer networks everyday for business interactions or personnel interactions for casual purpose. Actually, emails have become a popular interaction channel for information exchange between persons. Taken a large-scale company with electronic automations as an example, employees may receive and send a great many of emails every day. Some employees' jobs may even depend on emails, put another word, depend on interactions via emails, or depend on the tidying and reusing of information contained in the great many of emails.
Information contained in a lot of emails may be reused many times due to many reasons. For received emails, users often need to forward the emails to some other recipients. Sometimes, some information contained in these emails may be user-sensitive. The owner of the sensitive information may not expect the sensitive information to be forwarded. Therefore, it is more and more important to manage information in these emails, especially sensitive information, efficiently. To this end, server software and/or client software for emails have provided many approaches for managing emails. For example, information labeled secret in a company is disallowed to be send to the exterior of the company. However, some information may be sensitive only for specific users. Hence, it is needed a personalized management for content information included in the email, so as to reuse the information in the emails and protect sensitive information effectively. SUMMARY OF THE INVENTION
In view of the above disadvantages in the prior art, the present invention provides a method for processing emails, comprising: in response to forwarding an email, examining whether each recipient belongs to a first user group where a sender of the forwarded email belongs; if the each recipient belongs to the first user group where the sender of the forwarded email belongs, then forwarding the email to the each recipient; and if at least one recipient does not belong to the first user group where the sender of the forwarded email belongs, then filtering contents of the email according to a predefined rule of the first user group and forwarding the filtered email to the at least one recipient.
Viewed from a first aspect, the present invention provides a method of processing emails, comprising: in response to forwarding an email, examining whether each recipient belongs to a first user group where a sender of the forwarded email belongs; if the each recipient belongs to the first user group where the sender of the forwarded email belongs, then forwarding the email to the each recipient; and if at least one recipient does not belong to the first user group where the sender of the forwarded email belongs, then filtering contents of the email according to a predefined rule of the first user group and then forwarding the filtered email to the at least one recipient.
Preferably, the present invention provides a method further comprising: if at least one recipient does not belong to the first user group where the sender of the forwarded email belongs, then examining whether each recipient belongs to a second user group where the sender of the forwarded email belongs, wherein the second user group comprises all users in the first user group; if the each recipient belongs to the second user group where the sender of the forwarded email belongs, then filtering contents of the email according to a predefined rule of the first user group and then forwarding the filtered email to the at least one recipient; and if at least one recipient does not belong to the second user group where the sender of the forwarded email belongs, then filtering contents of the email according to predefined rules of the first and second user groups and then forwarding the filtered email to the at least one recipient. Preferably, the present invention provides a method wherein the step of filtering contents of the email further comprises filtering contents of the forwarded email according to tags attached to portions of the email.
Preferably, the present invention provides a method wherein predefined tags comprise a vocabulary or phrase or a group of vocabularies or phrases attached to portions of contents of the email for classifying the contents, or the tags are used to indicate that the distribution of some portion of contents of the email is limited to a range within the first user group.
Preferably, the present invention provides a method further comprising attaching tags to portions of contents of the email according to a predefined rule.
Preferably, the present invention provides a method wherein the step of attaching tags to portions of contents of the email according the predefined rule comprises receiving tags to be attached to portions of contents of the email; and attaching the tags to the portions of contents of the email.
Preferably, the present invention provides a method wherein the step of filtering contents of the email further comprises deleting email addresses in the forwarded email and/or deleting a signature portion in the forwarded email.
Preferably, the present invention provides a method further comprising: in response to detecting that a recipient and the sender of the forwarded email do not belong to an identical user group, issuing a prompt for filtering contents of the email; and in response to the detection of predefined contents needed to be deleted, issuing another prompt.
Preferably, the present invention provides a method further comprising: in response to forwarding the email, examining whether each cc recipient belongs to the first user group where the sender of the forwarded email belongs; if the each cc recipient belongs to the first user group where the sender of the forwarded email belongs, then forwarding the email to the each cc recipient; and if at least one cc recipient does not belong to the first user group where the sender of the forwarded email belongs, then filtering contents of the email according to a predefined rule of the first user group and then forwarding the filtered email to the at least one cc recipient.
Viewed from another aspect, the present invention provides a system of processing emails, comprising: a first determining means configured for, in response to forwarding an email, examining whether each recipient belongs to a first user group where a sender of the forwarded email belongs; a filtering means configured for, if at least one recipient does not belong to the first user group where the sender of the forwarded email belongs, then filtering contents of the email according to a predefined rule of the first user group to obtain the filtered email; and a sending means configured for, if the each recipient belongs to the first user group where the sender of the forwarded email belongs, then forwarding the email to the each recipient; if at least one recipient does not belong to the first user group where the sender of the forwarded email belongs, then forwarding the filtered email to the at least one recipient.
Preferably, the present invention provides a system further comprising: a second determining means configured for, if at least one recipient does not belong to the first user group where the sender of the forwarded email belongs, then examining whether each recipient belongs to a second user group where the sender of the forwarded email belongs, wherein the second user group comprises users in the first user group; the filtering means is further configured for, if the each recipient belongs to the second user group where the sender of the forwarded email belongs, then filtering contents of the email according to a predefined rule of the first user group to obtain the filtered email; and the filtering means is further configured for, if at least one recipient does not belong to the second user group where the sender of the forwarded email belongs, then filtering contents of the email according to predefined rules of the first and second user groups to obtain the filtered email.
Preferably, the present invention provides a system wherein the filtering means is further configured to filter contents of the forwarded email according to tags attached to portions of contents of the email.
Preferably, the present invention provides a system wherein predefined tags comprise a vocabulary or phrase or a group of vocabularies or phrases attached to portions of contents of the email for classifying the contents, or the tags are used to indicate that the distribution of some portion of contents of emails is limited to a range within the first user group.
Preferably, the present invention provides a system further comprising a tag attaching means for attaching tags to portions of contents of the email according to a predefined rule.
Preferably, the present invention provides a system wherein the tag attaching means is further configured to receive tags to be attached to portions of contents of the email; and attach the tags to the portions of contents of the email.
Preferably, the present invention provides a system wherein the filtering means is further configured for deleting email addresses in the forwarded email and/or deleting a signature portion in the forwarded email.
Preferably, the present invention provides a system further comprising a prompting means configured for, in response to detecting that a recipient and the sender of the forwarded email do not belong to an identical user group, issuing a prompt for filtering contents of the email; and in response to the filtering means detecting predefined contents needed to be deleted, issuing another prompt.
Preferably, the present invention provides a system further comprising: the first determining means is further configured for, in response to forwarding the email, examining whether each cc recipient belongs to the first user group where the sender of the forwarded email belongs; the sending means is further configured for, if the each cc recipient belongs to the first user group where the sender of the forwarded email belongs, then forwarding the email to the each cc recipient; and the filtering means is further configured for, if at least one cc recipient does not belong to the first user group where the sender of the forwarded email belongs, then filtering contents of the email according to a predefined rule of the first user group to obtain the filtered email. BRIEF DESCRIPTION ON THE DRAWINGS
Embodiments of the invention will now be described, by means of example only, with reference to the accompanying drawings in which:
Fig. 1 shows a flowchart of a method for processing emails according to a preferred embodiment of the present invention;
Fig. 2 shows a flowchart of a method for processing emails according to a preferred embodiment of the present invention;
Fig. 3 shows a flowchart of a method for processing emails according to a preferred embodiment of the present invention; and
Fig. 4 shows a block diagram of a system for processing emails according to a preferred embodiment of the present invention.
DETAILED DESCRIPTION OF THE INVENTION
The present invention will be described with reference to the method and apparatus according to embodiments of the present invention. Each block of flowchart and/or block diagram and combinations of each block in the flowchart and/or block diagram can be performed by computer program instructions. These computer program instructions may be provided to a processor of a general purpose computer, special purpose computer or other programmable data processing apparatus to produce a machine, such that the instructions, which are executed via the processor of the computer or other programmable data processing apparatus, create means for implementing the functions specified in the blocks of the flowchart and/or block diagrams.
These computer program instructions may also be stored in a computer-readable memory that can instruct a computer or other programmable data processing apparatus to function in a particular manner, such that the instructions stored in the computer-readable memory produce an article of manufacture including instruction means which implement the functions/operations specified in the blocks of the flow chart and/or block diagrams.
The computer program instructions may also be loaded onto a computer or other programmable data processing apparatus to cause a series of operational steps to be performed on the computer or other programmable data processing apparatus to produce a computer implemented process, such that the instructions which are executed on the computer or other programmable apparatus provide process for implementing the functions/operations specified in the blocks of the flowcharts and/or block diagrams.
Fig. 1 shows a flowchart of a method for processing emails according to an embodiment of the present invention. A method 100 for processing emails is shown therein. The method starts at step 110. At step 120, an email is received. At step 130, the email is forwarded. At step 140, in response to forwarding the email, it is examined whether each recipient belongs to a first user group where a sender of the forwarded email belongs.
It can be examined whether each recipient belongs to a first user group where the sender of the forwarded email belongs by checking the email addresses of the recipient and the sender. It can also be examined whether each recipient belongs to a first user group where the sender of the forwarded email belongs by checking the names of the recipient and the sender.
At step 150, if each recipient belongs to the first user group where the sender of the forwarded email belongs, then the email is forwarded.
At step 160, if at least one recipient does not belong to the first user group where the sender of the forwarded email belongs, the contents of the email is filtered according to a predefined rule of the first user group. For example, a predefined rule can be set to disallow some contents to be sent to the exterior of the first user group. At step 170, the filtered email is forwarded to the at least one recipient. At step 180, the method for processing emails is ended.
It can be appreciated by those skilled in the art that the method of the present invention can be applied to the cases that an email is forwarded to email addresses other than the addresses of recipients and carbon copied (cc) recipients in the forwarded email, including direct forwarding, adding new recipients or cc recipients when replying. The processing for each recipient is also suitable for each cc recipient.
Common emails often obey two protocols, POP3 and MIME protocols. The full name of POP3 protocol is "Post Office Protocol - Version 3", which is one of the TCP/IP protocol family and for use in transmitting emails from the server side to client side. The full name of MIME protocol is "Multipurpose Internet Mail Extensions", which is an Internet standard and for formatting email contents.
Emails transmitted to the client side generally comply with the MIME protocol. MIME comprises a mail header and mail body. The obtained recipients are a part of the mail header, designated as "TO" field. Below is a complete mail in the MIME format, from which strings of "To" field can be obtained. Information of sender and cc recipients can be obtained from "From" and "CC" fields.
Received: by 10.86.66.1 with HTTP; Mon, 6 Oct 2008 00:40:42 -0700 (PDT)
Message-ID : <fc3121650810060040o749ec 1 c21afc7a416dO6afd6a@mail.xxx. com>
Date: Mon, 6 Oct 2008 15:40:42 +0800
From: "=?GB2312?B?lr6yqNfz?=" <xxx@xxx.com>
To: xxx@xxx.com
CC: yyy@yyy.com
Subject: Beijing XXX Team Weekly Report by 12/14/2007
MIME-Version: 1.0
Content-Type : multipart/alternative; boundary="— -=_Part_6548_1407620.1223278842520" Delivered-To: xxx@xxx.com =_Part_6548_1407620.1223278842520
Content-Type: text/plain; charset=ISO-8859-l Content-Transfer-Encoding: 7bit Content-Disposition: inline this is a test mail.
"=?GB2312?B?lr6yqNfz?=" represents the name of the sender, which is encoded with GB2312. xxx@xxx.com refers to the email address of the recipient, and yyy@yyy.com represents the email address of the cc recipient.
According to another embodiment of the present invention, the method for processing emails further comprises: in response to forwarding the email, examining whether each cc recipient and a sender of the forwarded email belong to an identical user group; if the each cc recipient and the sender of the forwarded email belong to the identical user group, then forwarding the email to the cc recipient; and if at least one cc recipient and the sender of the forwarded email do not belong to the identical group, then filtering contents of the email according to a predefined rule of the user group and forwarding the filtered email to the at least one cc recipient.
According to another embodiment of the present invention, a method for processing emails is further provided, comprising: in response to replying an email, examining whether each recipient and each cc recipient and a sender of the forwarded email belong to an identical user group; if the each recipient and each cc recipient and the sender of the forwarded email belong to an identical group, then forwarding the email to the each recipient and each cc recipient; and if at least one recipient or at least one cc recipient and the sender of the forwarded email do not belong to the same group, then filtering contents of the email according to a predefined rule of the user group and forwarding the filtered email to the at least one recipient.
According to another embodiment of the present invention, wherein the email can be filtered based on the predefined rule of the user group so as to delete predefined email contents and forward the filtered email to the at least one recipient. The deletion of predefined email contents can be further configured to delete the signature portion of the forwarded email. The signature portion of email may comprise name, position, company, telephone number and the like. The signature portion may comprise a text, an image or a HTML file. A particular user can determine the predefined rule for filtering through setting the signature portion. For example, a tag can be added to that portion, which indicates that information of the portion is not allowed to sent to the exterior of the user group where the user locates. According to the predefined rule, contents which has been attached the tag can be deleted when filtering the email.
According to another embodiment of the present invention, the method 100 for processing emails described above can further comprise: in response to the detection that a recipient and the sender of the forwarded email do not belong to an identical user group, prompting the user to filter the email contents.
According to another embodiment of the present invention, wherein the predefined rule for filtering may specify that all emails should be filtered so as to delete email addresses in the forwarded email.
According to another embodiment, wherein the deletion of predefined email contents may be further configured to delete the portion of contents in the forwarded email, which has been attached a predefined tag. The predefined tag can comprise a vocabulary or phrase or a group of vocabularies or phrases attached to the portion of contents of emails for classifying contents. The tag can be further used to indicate that some portion of the contents of email should be distributed within a particular user group only. The predefined rule for filtering can specify that contents which have been attached some or some type of tag can be deleted when filtering the email.
According to another embodiment of the present invention, a step of issuing a prompt in response to the detection of predefined contents needed to be deleted can be further comprised. Thus, a user may decide delete or keep the portion of contents according to the prompt.
Members within a company can form a user group. Members within a department of a company can form a user group as well. A user can define a user group according to special requirements. For different user groups, different filtering rules can be customized so as to filter special type of information, such as sensitive information. These filtering rules can be combined to use.
Sensitive information can comprise recipient, recipient list, signature portion and/or sensitive information defined by user. The signature comprises the company, department, telephone number and etc.
A filter can be arranged on the email client to filter sensitive information. The filter comprises an information processor and an information detector.
The information processor is for adding a tag to the sensitive information and providing an interface for users to define sensitive information by the users. Attaching tags to different portions of contents of the email can be used to classify contents of the email in order to facilitate the filtering. For example, what is within the tag can designate that the portion of information is not allowed to be forwarded or to be forwarded to the exterior of a particular user group.
The information detector is for identifying sensitive information by identifying the tag added by the information processor.
The recipient and recipient list can be detected with the key words of "recipient" and "carbon copy". The address information following the "recipient" and "carbon copy" can be designated as information which is sensitive to the recipient. The detector in the filter at the email client side may detect the name of the recipient with the method and filter it.
The signature is predefined by a user and easy to be recognized if a tag is identified. A tag is a special character defined by the information processor, which is for being distinct from other characters. When an email is sent with a signature, the signature is identified by the information processor with a tag. When the recipient of the email forwards the email again, the detector can detect the signature through the tag and then delete it if needed.
A user can define different sensitive information based on different contact group defined by him/her. For example, a user can divide contacts into different groups as relative and colleague. Then, sensitive information such as husband, wife, parents, ID number and the like is defined for the "relative" group, while sensitive information like company name, department name, company telephone number and the like is defined for the "colleague" group.
The information processor provides an interface for users to facilitate inputing the user- defined sensitive information by users. When a user drafts an email or forwards information, the detector can search through the full text and match the user-defined information with the text, so as to find whether the user-defined information occurs in the text of the email. If the detector finds user-defined sensitive information in the text, the user can decide whether to delete it.
Fig. 2 shows a flowchart of a method for processing emails according to another embodiment of the present invention. A method 200 for processing emails is shown therein.
The method starts at step 210. At step 220, a user sends an email to multiple users. At step 230, sensitive information contained in the email is identified with at least one tag. That identifying the sensitive information in the email with at least one tag may be performed by a user receiving the email or the sender of the original email. The tag can indicate that the sensitive information portion is not allowed to be forwarded. At step 240, the at least one tag is sent to the multiple users. At step 250, the multiple users use the at least one tag to identify sensitive information in the email. The attachment of tags can be performed manually, or contents attached the tags can be used to update the contents of the received email automatically. For example, the manner of updating contents in a calendar in the email box can be used, that is, the email for updating contents of a meeting sent later can be used to update the contents of the accepted meeting in the calendar, equivalent to the replacement of a value in a field in the email. Alternatively, the contents of email received originally are updated based on the attached tag and the address of the corresponding contents.
At step 260, in response to forwarding the email, the sensitive information in the forwarded email is deleted and the processed email is forwarded. Thus, the sensitive information in the sent email is identified with a tag in time according to real requirements. Then, the tag is sent to corresponding multiple users. The multiple users can use the tag to process the received email to identify the sensitive information therein. According to the method of the above embodiments of the present inventiion, the sensitive information can be deleted when forwarding. The method can also facilitate users in identifying the sensitive information.
Fig. 3 shows a flowchart of a method for processing emails according to another embodiment of the present invention. A method 300 for processing emails is shown therein. The method starts at step 310. At step 320, an email is received. At step 330, the email is forwarded. At step 340, in response to forwarding the email, it is examined whether each recipient belongs to a first user group where a sender of the forwarded email belongs. If the each recipient belongs to the first user group where the sender of the forwarded email belongs, then the email is forwarded at step 350. At step 360, it is further examined whether the each recipient belongs to a second user group where the first user group is located, and wherein the sender of the forwarded email belongs to the first user group. If the recipient and the sender of the forwarded email do not belong to the second user group where the first user group is located, then at step 370, the contents of the email are filtered based on predefined rules of the first and second user groups. If the recipient and the sender of the forwarded email belong to the second user group where the first user group is located, then at step 380, the contents of the email are filtered based on the predefined rule of the first user group. The method ends at step 390.
For example, the first user group comprises users in a department in a company, and the second user group comprises all users in the company. The predefined rule of the second user group is an email rule of the company for sending emails to the exterior of the company; and the predefined rule of the first user group is an email rule of the department for sending emails to the exterior of the department. Then, at the above step 370, the emails sent to the exterior of the company are filtered according to the email rule of the company and the email rule of the department. At the above step 380, the emails sent to the exterior of the department but the interior of the company are filtered with the email rule of the department.
By doing so, the company can determine the company rule for filtering emails according to real requirements, and departments in different levels within the company can determine the department rules for filtering emails according to real requirements. The combination of the department rule and the company rule forms the filtering rule when emails are sent from the department to the exterior of the company. Thus, some portion of sensitive information can be only distributed in the interior of the company but in the exterior of the department, and another portion of sensitive information can be only distributed in the interior of the department.
Fig. 4 shows a block diagram of a system for processing emails according to another embodiment of the present invention. The system 400 for processing emails comprises: a first determining means 410 configured for, in response to forwarding an email, examining whether each recipient belongs to a first user group where a sender of the forwarded email belongs; a filtering means 430 configured for, if at least one recipient does not belong to the first user group where the sender of the forwarded email belongs, then filtering contents of the email according to a predefined rule of the first user group to obtain the filtered email; and a sending means 440 configured for, if the each recipient belongs to the first user group where the sender of the forwarded email belongs, then forwarding the email to the each recipient; if at least one recipient does not belong to the first user group where the sender of the forwarded email belongs, then forwarding the filtered email to the at least one recipient.
According to a further embodiment of the present invention, the system 400 for processing emails further comprises: a second determining means 420 configured for, if at least one recipient does not belong to the first user group where the sender of the forwarded email belongs, then examining whether each recipient belongs to a second user group where the sender of the forwarded email belongs, wherein the second user group comprises users in the first user group.
The filtering means 430 can be further configured for, if the each recipient belongs to the second user group where the sender of the forwarded email belongs, then filtering contents of the email according to a predefined rule of the first user group to obtain the filtered email; and if at least one recipient does not belong to the second user group where the sender of the forwarded email belongs, then filtering contents of the email according to predefined rules of the first and second user groups to obtain the filtered email.
According to a further embodiment of the present invention, wherein the filtering means is further configured for filtering the contents of the forwarded email according to a tag attached to the portion of contents of the email.
According to a further embodiment of the present invention, wherein predefined tags comprise a vocabulary or phrase or a group of vocabularies or phrases attached to portions of contents of the email for classifying the contents, or the tags are used to indicate that the distribution of some portion of contents of emails is limited to a range within the first user group.
According to a further embodiment of the present invention, the system 400 further comprises a tag attaching means for attaching a tag to the portion of contents of the email according to a predefined rule. The tag attaching means is further configured to receive tags to be attached to portions of contents of the email; and attach the tags to the portions of contents of the email.
According to a further embodiment of the present invention, wherein the filtering means is further configured for deleting email addresses in the forwarded email and/or deleting the signature portion in the forwarded email.
According to a further embodiment, wherein the system 400 further comprises a prompting means configured for, in response to detecting that a recipient and the sender of the forwarded email do not belong to an identical user group, issuing a prompt for filtering contents of the email; and in response to the filtering menas detecting predefined contents needed to be deleted, issuing another prompt.
According to a further embodiment of the present invention, wherein the first determining means is further configured for, in response to forwarding the email, examining whether each cc recipient belongs to the first user group where a sender of the forwarded email belongs; the sending means can be further configured for, if the each cc recipient belongs to the first user group where the sender of the forwarded email belongs, then forwarding the email to the each cc recipient; and the filtering means can be further configured for, if at least one cc recipient does not belong to the first user group where the sender of the forwarded email belongs, then filtering contents of the email according to a predefined rule of the first user group to obtain the filtered email.
The present invention further provides a storage medium or signal carrier comprising instructions for executing the method of the present invention.
The flowchart and block diagrams in the Figures illustrate the architecture, functionality, and operation of possible implementations of systems, methods and computer program products according to various embodiments of the present invention. In this regard, each block in the flowchart or block diagrams may represent a module, segment, or portion of code, which comprises one or more executable instructions for implementing the specified logical function(s). It should also be noted that, in some alternative implementations, the functions noted in the block may occur out of the order noted in the figures. For example, two blocks shown in succession may, in fact, be executed substantially concurrently, or the blocks may sometimes be executed in the reverse order, depending upon the functionality involved. It will also be noted that each block of the block diagrams and/or flowchart illustration, and combinations of blocks in the block diagrams and/or flowchart illustration, can be implemented by special purpose hardware-based systems that perform the specified functions or acts, or combinations of special purpose hardware and computer instructions.
The skilled in the art should appreciate that the present invention may be embodied as system, method or computer program product. Accordingly, the present invention may take the form of an entirely hardware embodiment, an entirely software embodiment (including firmware, resident software, micro-code, etc.) or an embodiment combining software and hardware aspects that may all generally be referred to herein as a "circuit," "module" or "system." Furthermore, the present invention may take the form of a computer program product embodied in any tangible medium of expression having computer-usable program code embodied in the medium. Any combination of one or more computer usable or computer readable medium(s) may be utilized. The computer-usable or computer-readable medium may be, for example but not limited to, an electronic, magnetic, optical, electromagnetic, infrared, or semiconductor system, apparatus, device, or propagation medium. More specific examples (a non- exhaustive list) of the computer-readable medium would include the following: an electrical connection having one or more wires, a portable computer diskette, a hard disk, a random access memory (RAM), a read-only memory (ROM), an erasable programmable read-only memory (EPROM or Flash memory), an optical fiber, a portable compact disc read-only memory (CDROM), an optical storage device, a transmission media such as those supporting the Internet or an intranet, or a magnetic storage device. Note that the computer- usable or computer-readable medium could even be paper or another suitable medium upon which the program is printed, as the program can be electronically captured, via, for instance, optical scanning of the paper or other medium, then compiled, interpreted, or otherwise processed in a suitable manner, if necessary, and then stored in a computer memory. In the context of this document, a computer-usable or computer-readable medium may be any medium that can contain, store, communicate, propagate, or transport the program for use by or in connection with the instruction execution system, apparatus, or device. The computer-usable medium may include a propagated data signal with the computer-usable program code embodied therewith, either in baseband or as part of a carrier wave. The computer usable program code may be transmitted using any appropriate medium, including but not limited to wireless, wireline, optical fiber cable, RF, etc.
Computer program code for carrying out operations of the present invention may be written in any combination of one or more programming languages, including an object oriented programming language such as Java, Smalltalk, C++ or the like and conventional procedural programming languages, such as the "C" programming language or similar programming languages. The program code may execute entirely on the user's computer, partly on the user's computer, as a stand-alone software package, partly on the user's computer and partly on a remote computer or entirely on the remote computer or server. In the latter scenario, the remote computer may be connected to the user's computer through any type of network, including a local area network (LAN) or a wide area network (WAN), or the connection may be made to an external computer (for example, through the Internet using an Internet Service Provider).
Although the present invention is described in detail with preferred solutions, it can be appreciated that the above embodiments are only for illustrative rather than limitation. The skilled person can modify the solutions of the present invention without departing from the spirit and scope of the present invention.

Claims

1. A method of processing emails, comprising: in response to forwarding an email, examining whether each recipient belongs to a first user group where a sender of the forwarded email belongs; if the each recipient belongs to the first user group where the sender of the forwarded email belongs, then forwarding the email to the each recipient; and if at least one recipient does not belong to the first user group where the sender of the forwarded email belongs, then filtering contents of the email according to a predefined rule of the first user group and then forwarding the filtered email to the at least one recipient.
2. The method as claimed in claim 1, further comprising: if at least one recipient does not belong to the first user group where the sender of the forwarded email belongs, then examining whether each recipient belongs to a second user group where the sender of the forwarded email belongs, wherein the second user group comprises all users in the first user group; if the each recipient belongs to the second user group where the sender of the forwarded email belongs, then filtering contents of the email according to a predefined rule of the first user group and then forwarding the filtered email to the at least one recipient; and if at least one recipient does not belong to the second user group where the sender of the forwarded email belongs, then filtering contents of the email according to predefined rules of the first and second user groups and then forwarding the filtered email to the at least one recipient.
3. The method as claimed in claim 1 or 2, wherein the step of filtering contents of the email further comprises filtering contents of the forwarded email according to tags attached to portions of the email.
4. The method as claimed in claim 3, wherein predefined tags comprise a vocabulary or phrase or a group of vocabularies or phrases attached to portions of contents of the email for classifying the contents, or the tags are used to indicate that the distribution of some portion of contents of the email is limited to a range within the first user group.
5. The method as claimed in claim 1 or 2, further comprising attaching tags to portions of contents of the email according to a predefined rule.
6. The method as claimed in claim 5, wherein the step of attaching tags to portions of contents of the email according the predefined rule comprises receiving tags to be attached to portions of contents of the email; and attaching the tags to the portions of contents of the email.
7. The method as claimed in claim 1 or 2, wherein the step of filtering contents of the email further comprises deleting email addresses in the forwarded email and/or deleting a signature portion in the forwarded email.
8. The method as claimed in claim 1 or 2, further comprising in response to detecting that a recipient and the sender of the forwarded email do not belong to an identical user group, issuing a prompt for filtering contents of the email; and in response to the detection of predefined contents needed to be deleted, issuing another prompt.
9. The method as claimed in claim 1, further comprising: in response to forwarding the email, examining whether each cc recipient belongs to the first user group where the sender of the forwarded email belongs; if the each cc recipient belongs to the first user group where the sender of the forwarded email belongs, then forwarding the email to the each cc recipient; and if at least one cc recipient does not belong to the first user group where the sender of the forwarded email belongs, then filtering contents of the email according to a predefined rule of the first user group and then forwarding the filtered email to the at least one cc recipient.
10. A system of processing emails, comprising: a first determining means configured for, in response to forwarding an email, examining whether each recipient belongs to a first user group where a sender of the forwarded email belongs; a filtering means configured for, if at least one recipient does not belong to the first user group where the sender of the forwarded email belongs, then filtering contents of the email according to a predefined rule of the first user group to obtain the filtered email; and a sending means configured for, if the each recipient belongs to the first user group where the sender of the forwarded email belongs, then forwarding the email to the each recipient; if at least one recipient does not belong to the first user group where the sender of the forwarded email belongs, then forwarding the filtered email to the at least one recipient.
11. The system as claimed in claim 10, further comprising: a second determining means configured for, if at least one recipient does not belong to the first user group where the sender of the forwarded email belongs, then examining whether each recipient belongs to a second user group where the sender of the forwarded email belongs, wherein the second user group comprises users in the first user group; the filtering means is further configured for, if the each recipient belongs to the second user group where the sender of the forwarded email belongs, then filtering contents of the email according to a predefined rule of the first user group to obtain the filtered email; and the filtering means is further configured for, if at least one recipient does not belong to the second user group where the sender of the forwarded email belongs, then filtering contents of the email according to predefined rules of the first and second user groups to obtain the filtered email.
12. The system as claimed in claim 10 or 11, wherein the filtering means is further configured to filter contents of the forwarded email according to tags attached to portions of contents of the email.
13. The system as claimed in claim 12, wherein predefined tags comprise a vocabulary or phrase or a group of vocabularies or phrases attached to portions of contents of the email for classifying the contents, or the tags are used to indicate that the distribution of some portion of contents of emails is limited to a range within the first user group.
14. The system as claimed in claim 10 or 11, further comprising a tag attaching means for attaching tags to portions of contents of the email according to a predefined rule.
15. The system as claimed in claim 14, wherein the tag attaching means is further configured to receive tags to be attached to portions of contents of the email; and attach the tags to the portions of contents of the email.
16. The system as claimed in claim 10 or 11, wherein the filtering means is further configured for deleting email addresses in the forwarded email and/or deleting a signature portion in the forwarded email.
17. The system as claimed in claim 10 or 11, further comprising a prompting means configured for, in response to detecting that a recipient and the sender of the forwarded email do not belong to an identical user group, issuing a prompt for filtering contents of the email; and in response to the filtering means detecting predefined contents needed to be deleted, issuing another prompt.
18. The system as claimed in claim 10, further comprising: the first determining means is further configured for, in response to forwarding the email, examining whether each cc recipient belongs to the first user group where the sender of the forwarded email belongs; the sending means is further configured for, if the each cc recipient belongs to the first user group where the sender of the forwarded email belongs, then forwarding the email to the each cc recipient; and the filtering means is further configured for, if at least one cc recipient does not belong to the first user group where the sender of the forwarded email belongs, then filtering contents of the email according to a predefined rule of the first user group to obtain the filtered email.
19. A computer program element comprising computer program code to, when loaded into a computer system and executed thereon, cause the computer to perform the steps of a method as claimed in any of claims 1 to 9.
PCT/EP2009/066225 2008-12-12 2009-12-02 Method and system for processing emails WO2010066617A1 (en)

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