Patent ID: 7457844

Claim:
A system for managing a plurality of messages which are sent and/or received by one or more correspondents, said system comprising: one or more data structures that store data representing (i) individual instances of at least a portion of each of the a plurality of messages; (ii) correspondent records, including information related to the one or more correspondents of the plurality of messages; (iii) message-correspondent information that links each unique instance of the individual messages with one or more correspondents of that message; one or more modules that are operable to analyze each of the plurality of messages in order to (i) identify the individual instances of the one or more portions of the individual messages in the plurality of messages, and (ii) generate the message-correspondent information; wherein the one or more modules are configured to: (i) identify one of an incoming or an outgoing message to identify at least a select portion of that message, (ii) determine whether the at least select portion of the incoming or outgoing message matches an individual instance of at least the portion of one of the plurality of messages, and (iii) responsive to the at least select portion of the message matching the individual instance of the at least portion of the one of the plurality of messages, performing at least one of: (a) discarding the at least select portion of the message, or (b) identifying a correspondent of the incoming or outgoing message and storing message correspondent information that links the identified correspondent to the matching individual instance; and wherein the one or more modules cause the identified unique instances of the individual messages and the generated message-correspondent information to be stored in the one or more data structures.