Patent ID: 8671131
Filing Date: 2014-03-11
Classification: H04L

Abstract:
1. System for enabling the cancellation of a previously-sent e-mail, comprising: a data transmission network, wherein a plurality of users are connected to said network, each of said users being able as a sender to send an e-mail over said network to a plurality of users as recipients connected to said network, and wherein a message transfer agent (MTA) is associated with each of said users for sending the e-mail when said user acts as a sender and delivering the e-mail when said user acts as a recipient, wherein each MTA includes a cancel mailbox for transmitting a cancellation message to said recipients when the user associated with said MTA is a sender wanting to cancel a previously-sent e-mail and for managing the cancellation of e-mails in the mailbox of the user associated with said MTA upon receiving said cancellation message from said sender when this user is a recipient, wherein the cancel mailbox of each MTA cancels the e-mail sent to the recipients only when none of the recipients has read the e-mail, and does not delete the e-mail when any of said recipients has read said e-mail, wherein the cancel mailbox in each said MTA is associated with a cancellation agent for managing the cancellation of the e-mail, wherein the cancellation agent reads messages from the recipients and in response to a content of the messages identifies an unread email, masks the unread email, unmasks an unread message, and deletes the email, wherein the managing the cancellation of the e-mail includes building a recipient table for the cancellation message in response to the cancellation message being sent and building a delete process table for the cancellation message in response to a message status response from each recipient, an intermediate MTA, different than the MTA associated with the sender and the MTA associated with any of the recipients, and responsible for a specific domain name or for a distribution list, between the MTA associated with the sender and the MTA associated with any of the recipients, the intermediate MTA including a cancel mailbox different than the cancel mailbox of the MTA associated with the sender and the cancel mailbox of the MTA associated with any of the recipients, the cancel mailbox of the intermediate MTA receiving the cancellation message from the MTA associated with the sender and, in response, transmitting the cancellation message to the MTA associated with each recipient.