Patent ID: 7475095

Claim:
A method for preventing an unread activity from being bounced-back to an originating server during a replication operation, comprising: storing an identification of an originating server of a replicated unread activity, the unread activity being associated with a read/unread status of an email, in an unread log of a receiving server; during a subsequent replication process initiated by the receiving server, preventing replication of the unread activity back to the originating server; during the subsequent replication process, replicating the unread activity to at least one other server not identified as the originating server; wherein storing an identification further comprises updating the unread log to include an unread entry corresponding to the replicated unread activity, and storing the identification of the originating server with the unread entry; wherein preventing the replication of the unread activity back to the originating server further comprises examining the unread log to determine if any unread entries stored therein correspond to an unread activity received from the originating server and, during the subsequent replication process, not replicating any unread activity identified as being received from the originating server back to the originating server, wherein the originating server has a name, and wherein the identification is a hash of the name of the originating server; and wherein during the subsequent replication process, if another server has the same hash as the originating server, the receiving server replicates the unread activity to the other server and back to the originating server.