Patent ID: 7953805

Claim:
A method for creating an electronic mailing group, said method comprising: associating a first group name of a first electronic mailing group with a plurality of electronic mail addresses such that the first electronic mailing group comprises said addresses; after said associating the first group name, designating each address in the first electronic mailing group as a first recipient type selected from the group consisting of a To recipient, a Carbon Copy recipient, and a Blind Carbon Copy recipient, wherein said designating each address in the first electronic mailing group is performed independently for each address in the first electronic mailing group and results in one or more addresses in the first electronic mailing group being designated as said To recipient and at least one address in the first electronic mailing group being designated as said Carbon Copy recipient or said Blind Carbon Copy recipient; after said designating is performed for all addresses in the first electronic mailing group, a processor of a computer system storing in a computer readable storage medium first information pertaining to the first electronic mailing group, wherein the computer readable storage medium is a storage device of the computer system, wherein the first information comprises the first group name, the addresses in the first electronic mailing group, and the designated first recipient type of each address in the first electronic mailing group, and wherein the first information stored in the computer readable storage medium is configured to be subsequently retrieved from the computer readable storage medium for specifying the addresses in the first electronic mailing group as first recipients of a first electronic mail message to be sent to said first recipients in accordance with the designated first recipient type of each address in the first electronic mailing group; and creating a child electronic mailing group of the first electronic mailing group to generate a link between the child electronic mailing group and the first electronic mailing group, wherein the child electronic mailing group comprises addresses which are identical to the addresses in the first electronic mailing group, and wherein a common address of said addresses has a first recipient type in the first electronic mailing group and a different recipient type in the child electronic mailing group.