Patent ID: 8190691

Claim:
A method of distinguishing between a plurality of email recipients by using a specific email transmission configuration identifier, the method comprising: determining for each recipient, respectively, whether or not an individual email transmission configuration of each recipient has been set to include the specific email transmission configuration identifier; adding a parameter indicating the set transmission configuration to each respective recipient (RCPT) command and transmitting the RCPT command to each respective recipient for whom the specific email transmission configuration identifier is set, and transmitting an RCPT command without the parameter to each respective recipient for whom the specific email transmission configuration identifier is not set; and transmitting the email according to the transmission configuration set for each recipient when a response to the RCPT command is received; wherein determining whether or not the specific email transmission configuration identifier has been set for an individual email configuration for each respective recipient includes determining whether an individual email transmission configuration has been set for each respective recipient to determine whether the specific email transmission configuration identifier succeeds or precedes a particular recipient separator for each recipient; and wherein a setting of the individual email configuration for each respective recipient is independent of a setting of a particular individual email configuration for any other respective recipient; and wherein the specific email transmission configuration identifier comprises a single character and an absence or presence of the single character for each recipient determines whether an attachment file is transmitted to a recipient.