Patent Publication Number: US-2006010213-A1

Title: Method for personal email archiving and organization for electronic data, including email, which can be utilized by both the user and the provider in a variety of ways

Description:
CROSS REFERENCE TO RELATED APPLICATIONS  
      None.  
     STATEMENT REGARDING FEDERALLY SPONSORED RESEARCH OR DEVELOPMENT  
      This invention was not federally sponsored.  
     BACKGROUND OF THE INVENTION  
      It appears that email will be to the 21 st  century what the telephone was to the 20 th  century: a radical improvement over the previous methods of communication. Email has greatly enhanced the ability to communicate internationally, as it is, relative to the telephone or facsimile machine, inexpensive and fast. Email also has the advantage of being easily forwarded to other interested parties. Email systems have become the major means of communication throughout industries and for personal use. There are a number of email service providers like Hotmail from Microsoft, Yahoo, and AOL—America Online, etc, offering internet based email services for personal use and for industries.  
      Email is made available to the majority of users through Internet Service Providers, or email service providers, which, for a fee, allow a customer email capabilities measured mainly with respect to the speed of communication and the amount of use. There are two components to the amount of use a customers gets for certain price: the amount of time he/she can access the internet, both for internet surfing and retrieving/writing emails, and the size of his/her email box, or the amount of space the email service provider allocates to the customer to store his/her emails on the email service provider&#39;s computer banks.  
      Many email service providers are offering customers a different size of memory space in which they can store the emails. This service helps user keep important emails in their email system for long time. Also, as use of internet emailing is continuously increasing, email service providers are offering more and more space, with additional charges, for users who regularly exceed their allotted mailbox size.  
      With increasing use of internet based email systems, it is desirable for service providers to offer customers with a variety of options for email management and security of their emails. There are some client tools available, like Outlook from Microsoft, Eudora, etc., which allow the user to view emails offline once downloaded. These client tools are synchronized with email server emails once connected to email server, but they are usually very expensive and remain proprietary to use with email service provider.  
      Along with its benefits, the enormous reliance upon email as a method of communication has produced a number of extremely serious problems. From time to time, an email service provider cease functioning, thereby depriving a user of access to online emails. A user&#39;s personal computer hard drive can also fail, losing some or all of the data on it. Email service providers usually sell their internet services to users in a method whereby a user pays a certain amount of money for a certain amount of space. When that space is full, the email service provider can refuse to accept further email for the user, which can be particularly devastating when a user cannot access his/her email for extended periods of time, such as when on a trip. Thus, there has existed a long-felt need for a well-organized method of allowing a customer greater flexibility in managing his/her email account.  
      There have been a number of attempts at improving email capabilities. For example, U.S. Pat. Nos. 6,438,594 and 6,434,568 to Bowman-Amuah teach interface methods by which a number of globally accessible interfaces can be accessed. These inventions, however, does not detail the complex email condensing and viewing capabilities of the current invention. U.S. Pat. No. 6,779,003 to Midgley, et. al., described a system and method for continuous backup of data stored on a computer network, but does not address the other aspects of the current invention. A patent representative of the virus-checking industry is found in U.S. Pat. No. 6,721,721 to Bates, et. al., which teaches a method and apparatus for protecting a computer from viruses during computer searches. Again, while this patent does provide a solution to part of the aforementioned problem, it does not address all the concerns which have been dealt with by the current invention.  
      The current invention meets these long-felt needs by providing a comprehensive method by which a user can more effectively manage email, and an email service provider can effectively sell email services to existing and potential customers.  
     SUMMARY OF THE INVENTION  
      It is a principal object of the invention to provide a method by which email service providers can offer to an existing or potential customer an improved method of email management.  
      It is another object of the invention that an email service provider can sell email storage space to a customer based upon a variety of fee-based programs which offer the customer an attractive range of methods of upgrading his/her email retrieval and storage capability.  
      It is an additional object of the invention that the email service provider be able to perform various operations on the user&#39;s computer to enhance the ability of the user to retrieve, view, and store emails.  
      It is also an object of this invention that a user be able to use an internet service provider as a “backup” for emails contained on the user&#39;s computer, such that if the user&#39;s computer crashes and loses all email stored on it, the user can retrieve the backed up emails from the email service provider&#39;s computers.  
      It is a further object of the invention that the email service provider be able to offer virus scanning and password protection to the user at all levels of this invention.  
      It is also an object of this invention that the invention be functional when the email service provider is dealing with anything from a single computer to a network of computers.  
      It is another object of the invention that the user be able to view, retrieve, and store emails without having to download them from the email service provider.  
      It is also an object of the invention that a user of the invention be able to sort and store the emails by a wide variety of characteristics.  
      It is a final object of the invention that the emails a user stores can be transferred to a wide variety of hardware, including USB devices, flash memory cards, etc.  
      It should be understood the while the preferred embodiments of the invention are described in some detail herein, the present disclosure is made by way of example only and that variations and changes thereto are possible without departing from the subject matter coming within the scope of the following claims, and a reasonable equivalency thereof, which claims  1  regard as my invention. 
    
    
     DETAILED DESCRIPTION OF INVENTION  
      The invention is directed toward a method of enhancing the archiving, storage and retrieval of any form of electronic media. Email is the best mode of this invention and will be used to illustrate it, but it should be understood that this invention is also equally applicable to any form of electronic data storage, including but not limited to electronic data exchange on desktop computers, PDA&#39;s, cell phones, calculator watches, personal address books, and other devices.  
      The invention, using email as the example, comprises software which allows a user with one or more computers to interface with one or more ISPs or other email providing services, companies, and operations, each of which may have one or computer locations in which emails can be stored. (Please note: the term email service provider will be used for the duration of this provisional patent application and shall be meant to include all of the above methods by which a user of this invention can get email). The invention allows an email service provider to sell to a user a number of options for storing, archiving, and retrieving his/her email, including a variety of plans under which a user will not “fill up” his/her mailbox, such that email is no longer accepted by the email service provider. The email service provider can sell this service both to existing customers and to new customers, with the suggestion that offering an introductory low price, or even free service, to entice customers or potential customers to try the invention as offered by the email service provider will be a successful way to lure more customers into subscribing to the email service provider&#39;s services.  
      The invention also allows a user to select the preferences under which his/her email is archived and retrieved, including size, date, name and other common characteristics. The user can download and upload email, either compressed or uncompressed, under a variety of different systems, and, according to the package purchased from the email service provider, have access to this email under a variety of different plans. The larger size of the email service provider R storage bank will allow a user to not only store more emails in his/her account than would be possible on a smaller partition within his/her own computer, but also to facilitate the sending of larger files, including compressed or zip files. The download of email can be automated through set up or manual request, these functions to be set by the customer. This request can create automated email from the email service provider such that the email service provider sends email to customer via attachments that are the email(s) that customer selected for download. This function can be defaulted for each email or by preference like sender, company, date etc.  
      The invention also allows a user to view email on the email service provider and determine whether to retrieve that particular email to his/her personal computer, or store it on the email service provider. The user would also have the option to delegate some emails to “read only” or “view only” status, on either his/her personal computer or the email service provider, and by designating whether the emails are stored as compressed or uncompressed, determine how much space each email takes up. By allowing a user to instantly locate and find a “.zip” file for sending via email without having to first create one, the user will save time and avoid having to take a chance on losing data should he/she make an error creating the zip file.  
      The invention also provides a mechanism by which a user can choose the level at which he/she stores an email. Level options include browser, manager, system folder, small personal email manager, email archival database, and any generic software or tool that can manage or store and manage email and other information.  
      It is another purpose of the invention to allow a user to give one or more email service provider&#39;s access to his/her computer for the purpose of partitioning a section of the hard drive to accept email, either by user preference, automatically from the email service provider, or in a combination of these two methods. For example, a user could order the email service provider to allow for user-selection of email except during periods when the user is on vacation, during which the user could order the email service provider to deposit email directly into a set directory or partition on the user&#39;s hard drive. The user could even grant to the email service provider the right to expand the size of the partition or the open up additional storage files on the user&#39;s computer if the size of his/her email receipts determined that such action was necessary. The characteristic, along with others in the invention could be password protected at either or both the user end and/or the email service provider end, and there could also be a password arranged between the email service provider and the user so that access to the user&#39;s data on the email service provider would be regulated by the password.  
      It is an additional purpose of the invention to allow a user to interface the email uploading, downloading, and archival systems of this invention with software and devices made by other companies. Such external software could include operating system software, such as Windows, or goal-specific software, such as Norton Anti-Virus, a filter, or an internet browser. By allowing the user to use his/her own personal software, the user can utilize virus-scanning, address storage, and other important functions of a standard personal computer to enhance his/her use of the invention. The invention can also interface with devices such as PDA&#39;s, cells phones, USB flash memory and digital camera flash memory, such that information from the user&#39;s email systems, both on his/her personal computer and on the email service provider (s) can be stored on the devices, and information stored on the devices can be uploaded to the personal computer and/or email service provider (s).  
      The invention also allows an email service provider to charge fees based on numerous bases, including a fee/download or upload, a fee for a certain bulk number of downloads, and time span related fee, such as a monthly or yearly fee, which could cover a limited or unlimited number of downloads/uploads. email service provider fees could also relate to the compression characteristics of each download or upload.