Patent ID: 7774503

Claim:
A method for delivering an electronic message, comprising: receiving an electronic message having a target address associated with a destination party, the target address being at least one of a phone number, an email address, and a username; for each of a plurality of destination addresses associated with the destination party, identifying a network carrier associated with the destination address, each destination address including the target address and being at least one of a phone number, an email address, and a username; determining whether each of the identified network carriers supports queries for availability of the destination address, and, for each identified network carrier that does not support queries, excluding the network carrier from the identified network carriers to which availability requests are sent; sending an availability request to each identified network carrier that supports queries, the availability request seeking to determine the availability of the destination address; receiving at least one response to the availability requests, each received response indicating the status of the associated destination address; and for each response indicating the associated destination address is available, sending the electronic message to the associated available destination address.