US 2007/0185963 A1Published application

System and method for prioritizing electronic mail and controlling spam

OwnerJohn Staufferinventor

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Abstract

The present system and method for prioritizing email and controlling spam provides capability to determine the priority of emails received by an addressee. Such emails are designed to alert an addressee of its priority by the number of times the characters of the email address of the addressee are repeated. The present system and method include a coder/decoder that repeats the characters of an addressee's email address to reflect the priority of the email address assigned by the sender prior to sending the email over a network. The coder/decoder is embodied in software or instructions that are run on an email client or email server that count the number of times these characters are repeated. The greater number of repetitions, the greater the priority of the email.

Claims22

Dependent claims

A system for prioritizing email and controlling spam comprising:

means for establishing a connection on a network between a sender's email client connected to an email-sending server and an addressee's email client connected to an email-receiving server, wherein said email-sending server and said email-receiving server utilize a common email system protocol to send an email on said network;
means for selecting on said sender's email client an addressee's email address and a desired priority for said email to be sent to said addressee;
means for coding said addressee's email address of said email by taking a first character of said addressee's email address and repeating said first character a corresponding number of times to reflect said selected priority;
means for sending, via said common email system protocol, said coded email from said email-sending server to said email-receiving server;
means for receiving, via said common email system protocol, said email at said addressee's email server from said email-sending server;
means for decoding said email address of said email by comparing said first character of said coded email address with a stored email address for said addressee;
and
means for determining said selected priority at said addressee's email client based on the repetitions of said first character of said addressee's email address.

5 more elements

Dependencies are inferred from the claim text.