Patent ID: 7561868

Claim:
An apparatus for retrieving electronic mail messages via a wireless network, the apparatus comprising: a gateway that sends an electronic mail retrieval reply message that includes the electronic mail messages in a format compatible with a wireless device to the wireless device in response to receiving an electronic mail retrieval request message from a router utilizing a socket from the wireless device, that is in a format compatible with the wireless device and that sends an electronic mail retrieval reply message that includes the electronic messages in a format compatible with the wireless device to the wireless device in response to determining that a time for automatically polling a remote electronic mail message server has occurred and automatically polling the remote electronic mail server to discover the electronic messages; and an application module executed by the gateway, the application module having computer readable instructions, wherein the computer readable instructions convert the retrieval request message received by the gateway from the wireless device into a format that is compatible with the remote electronic mail message server and that is capable of transmission over an external computer network and the computer readable instructions convert the retrieval reply message received by the gateway from the remote electronic mail message server over the external computer network into the format capable of transmission over a wireless network and that is compatible with the wireless device.