Patent ID: 8799376
Filing Date: 2014-08-05
Classification: G06Q

Abstract:
1. A computer implemented method for processing e-mail, the method comprising steps of: editing an email in a mail editing unit in accordance with input by an user, said email comprising at least three destination addresses wherein each of the at least three destination addresses is a recipient address corresponding to a different recipient, a plurality of contents wherein each of the contents corresponds respectively to one of the at least three destination addresses, and a plurality of display attributes of the contents; acquiring, by an address collecting portion of a mail processing unit, a degree of association from a degree of association database between each pair of destination addresses among the at least three destination addresses, wherein the mail processing unit receives the email from the mail editing unit, said degree of association (1) reflecting personal relationships between users corresponding to the each pair of destination addresses, and (2) comparing associations between a first pair of destination addresses and a second pair of destination addresses; modifying, by the mail processing unit, the display attributes for the contents in accordance with the degree of association including providing separate content boxes for each of the contents corresponding respectively to one of the at least three destination addresses; sending, to each of the at least three destination addresses, the modified email received from the mail processing unit to the mail receiving unit via a mail server; and displaying the email received from the mail receiving unit on display screens for each of the different recipients wherein the display attributes enable the email contents to be displayed to differentiate between each of the different recipients in accordance with the degree of association between the each pair of destination addresses among the at least three destination addresses; wherein for each of the different recipients, the content box corresponding to the recipient is displayed as most important, and the content boxes corresponding to the other recipients are displayed in the order of importance according to the degree of association between each of the other recipients and the recipient.