Patent ID: 8621009

Claim:
A computer-implemented method comprising: maintaining a server database of a plurality of electronic messages received from a plurality of clients; receiving, by a server computing system, an object of a new electronic message from one of the plurality of clients, the object of the new electronic message being sent to one or more recipients; determining, by the server computing system, whether the new electronic message was created as part of a thread containing one or more of the plurality of electronic messages in the server database; when the new electronic message was not created as part of a thread containing any of the plurality of electronic messages in the server database, sending, by the server computing system, the object of the new electronic message to the recipients; and when the new electronic message was created as part of a thread containing any of the plurality of electronic messages in the server database, determining whether objects of the electronic messages in the thread are stored locally at the recipients; sending, by the server computing system to a corresponding recipient, the object of the new electronic message and one or more objects of the electronic messages in the thread that are not stored locally at the corresponding recipient, the new electronic message created to comment on one or more individual segments of the electronic messages in the thread, the object of the new electronic message being sent to the corrersponding recipient with identifiers of the individual segments of the electronic messages in the thread, and refraining from sending to the corresponding recipient, by the server computing system, one or more objects of the electronic messages in the thread that are stored locally at the corresponding recipient, wherein the one or more of the electronic messages in the thread include the individual segments selectable by the corresponding recipient based on the sent identifiers when the new electronic message is displayed to the recipient as one or more comments on the individual segments.