Electronic mail software with modular integrated authoring/reading software components
DC CAFC
First Claim
1. An electronic mail client embodied in an executable computer-readable medium, comprising:
- a) a plurality of authoring and reading components, a first of said plurality of authoring components for creating a representation of a document including an other than text portion and for creating the other than text portion of the document;
b) encoding means for automatically encoding said representation created with said authoring components into an Internet-compatible email message; and
c) decoding means for automatically decoding said representation encoded by said encoding means, whereinsaid encoding means and said decoding means communicate bidirectionally with said authoring components.
2 Assignments
Litigations
1 Petition
Accused Products
Abstract
Electronic mail software includes a main email component and a number installable components. The installable components include authoring/reading components for creating/reading different kinds of documents and mailbox components for listing different kinds of messages or for listing messages in different styles. The main email component provides an underlying graphical user interface for functions directly associated with the storage and transfer of electronic mail messages, and also handles all data bundling and unbundling required to transform a message created by an authoring component into a MIME compliant message. The authoring/reading components act like applications embedded within the email program and allow specific types of documents such as spreadsheets, graphics, databases, etc. to be created from within the email program and emailed directly. The authoring/reading components also allow received documents to be read without the difficulties traditionally associated with attaching binary files to an email letter. The authoring components of the invention pass data to the main email component which packages the data as a MIME compliant message. When the message is received, the main email component concatenates and decodes the MIME message and sends the data to the authoring/reading component associated with the MIME type.
136 Citations
25 Claims
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1. An electronic mail client embodied in an executable computer-readable medium, comprising:
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a) a plurality of authoring and reading components, a first of said plurality of authoring components for creating a representation of a document including an other than text portion and for creating the other than text portion of the document; b) encoding means for automatically encoding said representation created with said authoring components into an Internet-compatible email message; and c) decoding means for automatically decoding said representation encoded by said encoding means, wherein said encoding means and said decoding means communicate bidirectionally with said authoring components. - View Dependent Claims (2, 3, 4, 5, 6, 7, 8, 9, 10, 11)
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12. An electronic mail client for a student and a teacher embodied in an executable computer-readable medium, comprising:
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a) a plurality of authoring components, a first of said plurality of authoring components for creating a representation of a text document and a second of said plurality of authoring components for creating a representation of a document including other than text; b) encoding means for automatically encoding representations created with said authoring components into an email message; and c) decoding means for automatically decoding said representations encoded with said encoding means, wherein at least one of said authoring components includes means for determining whether the user is the student or the teacher. - View Dependent Claims (13, 14, 15, 16, 17, 18)
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19. A method of authoring a document and sending it by electronic mail, said method comprising:
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a) providing a document-authoring component which authors a portion of a document which is other than a plain-text; b) providing a document-encoding component which encodes the document as Internet-compatible email; c) linking the document-authoring component with the document encoding component such that documents generated under said document-authoring component are automatically encoded as Internet-compatible email. - View Dependent Claims (20, 21, 22, 23)
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24. An electronic mail client, comprising:
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a) a plurality of authoring and reading components, each authoring component for creating a different kind of email message; b) encoding means for automatically encoding email messages created with said authoring components into an Internet-compatible email message with said email message including a message type identifier; and c) decoding means for automatically decoding said email messages encoded by said encoding means, wherein said message type identifier is used to determine which reading component is used to read a decoded email message.
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25. An electronic mail client, comprising:
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a) a plurality of authoring and reading components for authoring and reading different kinds of documents including documents which have content that is not plain text; b) encoding means for automatically encoding said documents created with said authoring components into an Internet-compatible email messages; c) decoding means for automatically decoding said documents encoded by said encoding means; and d) means for determining which of said plurality of reading components are needed to read said documents, wherein said means for determining automatically opens documents with the reading component needed to read it.
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Specification
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- Resources
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Current AssigneeUmbanet, Inc.
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Original AssigneeIntellinet (Intellinet Technologies Incorporated)
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InventorsBaker, Michelle
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Primary Examiner(s)PAULA, CESAR B
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Application NumberUS09/209,162Time in Patent Office2,770 DaysField of Search707/526, 707530-531, 709/206, 395/752, 715/526, 715530-531, 715/752US Class Current715/210CPC Class CodesG06F 9/44 Arrangements for executing ...G06Q 10/107 Computer-aided management o...
