Patent ID: 8175581

Claim:
A selective message notification method comprising the step of interrupting a message recipient within a client with a message notification for a received message only when the received message satisfies a pre-determined criteria, wherein said interrupting step further comprises the steps of: determining a mode of selection to be applied to a received message; checking a manual setting to determine whether or not to issue a notification for the received message if in a manual processing mode, retrieving and applying a rule to determine whether or not to issue a notification for the received message if in a rule mode, and retrieving a profile for a recipient of said received message, comparing attributes of said profile with attributes of said received message, and determining whether the comparison of the attributes of the profile with the attributes of the received message permit a notification for the received message if in a profile processing mode; and, responsive to a determination that determination irrespective of the mode does permit a notification generating said notification.