Persistent Email Header Qualifiers for Message Tracing
Find Innovative SolutionsGenerate Solutions
Solution Overview
Problem
Current email and messaging systems lack effective mechanisms for preserving message headers, tracing message origins, and enabling user-defined rules, leading to issues like unwanted messages, difficulty in tracing message paths, and inefficient message tracking.
Innovation Solution
The introduction of 'qualifiers' and 'qualified headers' that persistently mark electronic message headers, allowing for originator identification, user-defined rules, thread closure, and advanced tracing and tracking functionalities by indicating the persistent nature or indexing of header fields.
Engineering Contradictions & Design Principles
Engineering Contradiction Analysis
1Measurement precision
If message headers are preserved and traced through multiple email systems, then message tracking capability is improved, but system complexity increases
Solution Approach 1:
The patent segments the message tracking function into distinct components: qualifiers that mark specific header fields, qualified headers that carry persistent information, and processing rules that act on these markers. This segmentation allows the system to track messages without requiring complete system-wide complexity, as each component has a specific, limited function.
Solution Approach 2:
The patent introduces qualifiers as intermediary elements that mediate between message headers and tracking systems. These qualifiers act as standardized markers that different email systems can recognize and process without requiring deep integration, thus improving tracking capability while limiting the propagation of complexity across systems.
2Measurement precision
If qualifiers and qualified headers are introduced to enable advanced tracking, then message tracing capability is improved, but ease of operation deteriorates
Solution Approach 1:
The patent implements self-service mechanisms where email systems automatically process qualifiers and qualified headers without requiring manual intervention. The system autonomously applies processing rules, preserves persistent headers, and generates tracking information, which improves tracing capability while maintaining ease of operation through automation rather than manual processes.
3Measurement precision
If persistent header fields are used to mark message origins, then originator identification is improved, but device complexity increases
Solution Approach 1:
The patent extracts the originator identification function into separate persistent header fields that are taken out from the general message header structure. These qualified headers contain specifically extracted information about message origins and are processed independently, which improves identification precision while containing complexity within specific device components rather than requiring system-wide complexity.
Data Source
Figure 1
Figure 2
Figure 3
AI summary
A method and system provide qualifiers for electronic message header fields. The electronic messages may be email, text, or other messages sent via a wireless or wired communications networks. The qualifiers may facilitate (1) indicating the persistent nature of an electronic message header field; (2) electronic message originator identification; (3) user-defined rules being persistently applied to electronic messages by various entities as the electronic messages travel along; (4) user opt out of electronic message strings or groups; (5) the closing electronic message threads; (6) the ordering of electronic message header fields; (7) electronic message tracing; and/or (8) electronic message tracking. In one aspect, the qualifiers may be of a persistent or indexed nature. The qualifiers and associated qualified electronic message header fields may be generated, operated on, relayed, and/or handled by mobile devices, networks, servers, and/or communications systems to facilitate electronic message-related functionality being achieved either locally or remotely.