Patent Issued for Systems and methods for caching emails for subsequent delivery (USPTO 11394681): United Services Automobile Association

2022 AUG 05 (NewsRx) -- By a News Reporter-Staff News Editor at Insurance Daily News -- According to news reporting originating from Alexandria, Virginia, by NewsRx journalists, a patent by the inventors Kwak, Victor (Frisco, TX, US), Lopez, Mark Anthony (Helotes, TX, US), Lyle, Ruthie D. (Durham, NC, US), Meyer, Gregory Brian (San Antonio, TX, US), Russell, Christopher (San Antonio, TX, US), Russell, Ryan Thomas (San Antonio, TX, US), Serrao, Nolan (Plano, TX, US), filed on May 29, 2020, was published online on July 19, 2022.

The assignee for this patent, patent number 11394681, is United Services Automobile Association (San Antonio, Texas, United States).

Reporters obtained the following quote from the background information supplied by the inventors: “When a group of users who are often all the recipients of the same email from a particular source all log on to the same local area network (LAN) at approximately the same time, the emails may download relatively slowly simply due to the temporary congestion on the LAN. The congestion and consequent slow delivery occurs because the LAN has to distribute the emails to everyone in the group at roughly the same time. For example, a group of office workers all working in the same field or on the same project may all receive the same emails from their management, from their supervisor, or from another colleague. The delivery of these multiple-recipient emails may occur at the same time, for example they may occur when the office workers start their day by logging on to the office server and start opening up their email applications (such as Microsoft Outlook, for example). This surge in demand at the beginning of the workday may strain the resources of the office system, thus causing the emails to download very slowly for each of the office workers. The same issue may also cause slow email downloads in other environments, such as in universities, hospitals, volunteer organizations and other institutions.

“For these reasons, there is a need for systems and methods that reduce the email download time for recipients of multiple-recipient messages such as emails and text messages, for example.”

In addition to obtaining background information on this patent, NewsRx editors also obtained the inventors’ summary information for this patent: “In one aspect, embodiments include a system for delivering multi-recipient emails to a group of personal computers. The system has a server in communication with the group of personal computers over a local area network. Each of the personal computers in the group of personal computers has an email cache, and the server is configured to download all multi-recipient emails into the email cache of the personal computer that is first used to read emails at a beginning of a particular day. This personal computer is also configured to then distribute the multi-recipient emails over a personal area network to each of the addressees’ personal computers as each of the addressees’ personal computers is used to read emails.

“In another aspect, embodiments include a method for distributing emails to a group of persons who are users of personal computers that are in direct communication with each other over a personal area network. The process starts by receiving at a server a number of multi-recipient emails addressed to at least one person in the group. The server then monitors the status of the personal computers, starting at a predetermined time early in a workday, and identifies which personal computer was first used on the workday to access an email account. The server then also distributes the multi-recipient emails to the identified personal computer that was first used on the workday to access the email account. Then that personal computer distributes the multi-recipient emails over the personal area network to each of the addressees of the multiple-recipient emails when each such addressee logs in to an email account. The server then distributes the multi-recipient emails to any addressees of the multi-recipient emails who are not among the persons who are the users of the personal computers. This step may be performed any time after the receipt of the multi-recipient emails.

“In another aspect, a method for reducing email download time for persons working on personal computers that are in communication with each other over a personal area network includes receiving multi-recipient emails from a server at a first one of the personal computers that is the first one of the personal computers that is used to access emails, then storing the multi-recipient emails in an email cache in the first one of the personal computers. The first one of the personal computers then monitors the status of the other personal computers that are in communication with each other over the personal area network, and successively distributes each of the multi-recipient emails to their addressees as those addressees access their email accounts.

“Other systems, methods, features and advantages of the invention will be, or will become, apparent to one of ordinary skill in the art upon examination of the following figures and detailed description. It is intended that all such additional systems, methods, features and advantages be included within this description and this summary, be within the scope of the invention, and be protected by the following claims.”

The claims supplied by the inventors are:

“1. A system for delivering multi-recipient emails to a group of personal computers, comprising: a server in communication with the group of personal computers over a local area network, wherein the server is configured to: receive a number of multi-recipient emails addressed to at least one person in the group; send a first set of the multi-recipient emails classified as being at least one of confidential and restricted directly to their intended recipients; monitor the status of the personal computers, starting at a predetermined time early in a workday; identify which personal computer was first used on the workday to access an email account; distribute a second set of remaining multi-recipient emails to the identified personal computer that was first used on the workday to access the email account, the personal computer then distributing the multi-recipient emails of the second set over a personal area network to each of the addressees of the multiple-recipient emails when each such addressee logs in to an email account; and distribute the multi-recipient emails of the second set to any addressees of the multi-recipient emails who are not among the group of persons who are users of the personal computers that are in direct communication with each other over the personal area network, wherein this step may be performed any time after the receipt of the multi-recipient emails.

“2. The system of claim 1, wherein the multi-recipient emails classified as being at least one of confidential and restricted that are encrypted are distributed with the second set.

“3. The system of claim 1, wherein the personal computer that was first used on the workday to access the email account grants priority access to computing resources to apps actually being executed on that particular personal computer, other than any apps being used to distribute the multi-recipient emails.

“4. The system of claim 1, wherein the personal computer that is first used to read emails at the beginning of the day is configured to preclude a user of the personal computer that is first used to read emails at the beginning of the day to access emails that do not include that user as an addressee.

“5. The system of claim 1, wherein an email cache of the personal computer that is first used to access emails from the server at the beginning of the day is cleared of multi-recipient emails at the end of the day that have already been delivered to their recipients.

“6. The system of claim 4, wherein the person who is the user of the identified personal computer is precluded from seeing any of the multi-recipient emails that do not list the person as an addressee.

“7. The system of claim 1, wherein the server is also configured to download any multi-recipient emails received later in the day into an email cache of one of the personal computers for subsequent distribution.

“8. A method for distributing emails to a group of persons who are users of personal computers that are in direct communication with each other over a personal area network, the method comprising: receiving, at a server, a number of multi-recipient emails addressed to at least one person in the group; sending, by the server, a first set of the multi-recipient emails classified as being at least one of confidential and restricted directly to their intended recipients; monitoring, by the server, the status of the personal computers, starting at a predetermined time early in a workday; identifying, by the server, which personal computer was first used on the workday to access an email account; distributing, by the server, a second set of remaining multi-recipient emails to the identified personal computer that was first used on the workday to access the email account, the personal computer then distributing the multi-recipient emails of the second set over the personal area network to each of the addressees of the multiple-recipient emails when each such addressee logs in to an email account; and distributing, by the server, the multi-recipient emails of the second set to any addressees of the multi-recipient emails who are not among the group of persons who are users of the personal computers that are in direct communication with each other over the personal area network, wherein this step may be performed any time after the receipt of the multi-recipient emails.

“9. The method of claim 8, wherein the personal computer that was first used on the workday to access the email account grants priority access to computing resources to apps actually being executed on that particular personal computer, other than any apps being used to distribute the multi-recipient emails.

“10. The method of claim 8, wherein a person who is a user of the identified personal computer is precluded from accessing any of the multi-recipient emails that do not list the person as an addressee.

“11. The method of claim 8, wherein the personal computer distributing the multi-recipient emails to each of the addressees of the multiple-recipient emails stores the multiple-recipient emails in an email cache.

“12. The method of claim 10, wherein the person who is the user of the identified personal computer is precluded from seeing any of the multi-recipient emails that do not list the person as an addressee.

“13. The method of claim 8, further comprising distributing multi-recipient emails received later in the day to whichever personal computer is being used by one person of the group of persons who is both an addressee of the multi-recipient email and is using one of the personal computers to access an email account.

“14. The method of claim 8, wherein the multi-recipient emails classified as being at least one of confidential and restricted that are encrypted are distributed with the second set.

“15. The method of claim 8, wherein any multi-recipient emails that have not already been distributed are distributed at a predetermined time later in the day.

“16. A non-transitory computer readable medium storing software comprising instructions executable by one or more computers, which, upon such execution, cause the one or more computers to perform a method for distributing emails to a group of persons who are users of personal computers that are in direct communication with each other over a personal area network, the method comprising: receiving, at a server, a number of multi-recipient emails addressed to at least one person in the group; sending, by the server, a first set of the multi-recipient emails classified as being at least one of confidential and restricted directly to their intended recipients; monitoring, by the server, the status of the personal computers, starting at a predetermined time early in a workday; identifying, by the server, which personal computer was first used on the workday to access an email account; distributing, by the server, a second set of remaining multi-recipient emails to the identified personal computer that was first used on the workday to access the email account, the personal computer then distributing the multi-recipient emails of the second set over the personal area network to each of the addressees of the multiple-recipient emails when each such addressee logs in to an email account; and distributing, by the server, the multi-recipient emails of the second set to any addressees of the multi-recipient emails who are not among the group of persons who are users of the personal computers that are in direct communication with each other over the personal area network, wherein this step may be performed any time after the receipt of the multi-recipient emails.

“17. The non-transitory computer readable medium, of claim 16, wherein the multi-recipient emails classified as being at least one of confidential and restricted that are encrypted are distributed with the second set.

“18. The non-transitory computer readable medium of claim 16, wherein a person who is a user of the identified personal computer is precluded from accessing any of the multi-recipient emails that do not list the person as an addressee.

“19. The non-transitory computer readable medium of claim 18, wherein the person who is the user of the identified personal computer is precluded from seeing any of the multi-recipient emails that do not list the person as an addressee.

“20. The non-transitory computer readable medium of claim 16, wherein the personal computer that was first used on the workday to access the email account grants priority access to computing resources to apps actually being executed on that particular personal computer, other than any apps being used to distribute the multi-recipient emails.”

For more information, see this patent: Kwak, Victor. Systems and methods for caching emails for subsequent delivery. U.S. Patent Number 11394681, filed May 29, 2020, and published online on July 19, 2022. Patent URL: http://patft.uspto.gov/netacgi/nph-Parser?Sect1=PTO1&Sect2=HITOFF&d=PALL&p=1&u=%2Fnetahtml%2FPTO%2Fsrchnum.htm&r=1&f=G&l=50&s1=11394681.PN.&OS=PN/11394681RS=PN/11394681

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