US 8,943,148 B2Granted

Internet E-mail bridge

AssigneeMicrosoft Corporation

InventorsDouglas K. Brubacher, Luciano Passuello

Life of this patent

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Abstract

An Internet mail bridge is provided for downloading e-mail messages from Internet mail servers supporting different email protocols, such as the Post Office Protocol 3 (POP3) and Web Distributed Authoring and Versioning (Web DAV) protocol, and delivering the downloaded messages, which are in different formats, to a mail server on a local area network. The Internet mail bridge has a mail manager that is independent from particular e-mail protocols or e-mail formats. For each e-mail account, the mail manager instantiates a mail connector object that contains logic for downloading e-mail according to the e-mail access protocol of that account, and invokes the mail connector object to download e-mail messages from that account. The mail manager then instantiates and invokes mail deliverer objects tailored for handling different message formats to deliver the downloaded messages to the local mail server.

Claims20

Dependent claims

A system for retrieving e-mail messages from a first Internet e-mail account and a second Internet e-mail account, the system comprising:

at least one processor;
and
a memory coupled to the processor, the memory storing computer executable instructions that, when executed by the at least one processor, performs a method of:
retrieving a first e-mail message from the first Internet e-mail account supporting a first e-mail protocol, wherein the first e-mail message is retrieved by invoking a first set of one or more objects having logic for downloading e-mail according to the first e-mail protocol;
retrieving a second e-mail message from the second Internet e-mail account supporting a second e-mail protocol, wherein the second e-mail protocol is different from the first protocol, and wherein the second e-mail message is retrieved by invoking a second set of one or more objects having logic for downloading e-mail according to the second e-mail protocol;
delivering the first e-mail message to a local e-mail server by invoking a third set of one or more objects having logic for delivering e-mail that is in a first format in accordance with the first e-mail protocol of the first e-mail account;
and
delivering the second e-mail message to the local e-mail server by invoking a fourth set of one or more objects having logic for delivering e-mail that is in a second format in accordance with the second e-mail protocol of the second e-mail account.

5 more elements

A computer storage medium encoding computer executable instructions that, when executed by a processor, perform a method for delivering e-mail messages from a first Internet e-mail account and a second e second Internet e-mail account to local storage, the method comprising:

receiving a request to download e-mail messages;
retrieving a first e-mail message from the first Internet e-mail account having a first e-mail access protocol, wherein the first e-mail message is retrieved by invoking a first set of one or more objects having logic for connecting to the first Internet e-mail account and downloading the first e-mail messages according to the first e-mail access protocol;
retrieving a second e-mail message from the second Internet e-mail account having a second e-mail access protocol, wherein the second e-mail access protocol is different from the first e-mail access protocol, and wherein the second e-mail message is retrieved by invoking a second set of one or more objects having logic for connecting to the second Internet e-mail account and downloading the second e-mail message according to the second e-mail access protocol;
delivering the first e-mail message to the local storage by invoking a third set of one or more objects having format-specific logic for handling delivery operations according to a first format of the first e-mail message;
and
delivering the second e-mail message to the local storage by invoking a fourth set of one or more objects having format-specific logic for handling delivery operations according to a second format of the second e-mail message, wherein the second format is different from the first format.

3 more elements

Dependencies are inferred from the claim text.

Facts

Application: 12/983,774Filed 3 Jan 2011 · continuation
Priority: 14 Mar 2002
Published: US 2012/0011209 A112 Jan 2012
Granted: 27 Jan 2015
Term ends: Not estimatedThe source records don’t support an estimate.

Classification7 codes

H04L 51/42
User-to-user messaging in packet-switching networks, transmitted according to store-and-forward or real-time protocols, e.g. e-mail:…
G06Q 10/107
Office automation; Time management: computer-aided management of electronic mailing [e-mailing]
H04L 51/066
Message adaptation to terminal or network requirements: format adaptation, e.g. format conversion or compression
H04L 51/56
User-to-user messaging in packet-switching networks, transmitted according to store-and-forward or real-time protocols, e.g. e-mail: unified…

Family

Application10/097,286Parent of this continuation · filed 14 Mar 2002
US 2012/0011209 A1Pre-grant publication · published 12 Jan 2012
US 7,865,554 B2Parent of this continuation
US 2003/0177188 A1Published application
US 8,943,148 B2This patent

From the US filing history. Foreign family members aren’t listed.