Claims Analysis
Total Claims: 10
Claim 1
Independent Claim
89 words
An electronic type distributed mail system,
comprising: a plurality of client computers for connecting to
a network, each client computer being configured for
executing client mail application programs; a mail service system connected to the network
for executing server mail programs on server
computers, the mail service system including an index server for storing mail messages in
message files, and for storing a full-text index of
the mail messages; and means for accessing the mail messages by the
plurality of client computers by searching the full-text
index using queries.
Claim 2
Dependent Claim
23 words
The distributed mail system of claim 1, wherein the
client mail application programs are down-loaded from the
mail service system over the network.
Claim 3
Dependent Claim
51 words
The distributed mail system of claim 1, wherein the
query includes: terms, selected of the terms to be connected by
operators; and means for composing a query using the client
application mail programs; and searching the full-text index to locate mail
messages which satisfy the terms and operators of the
query.
Claim 4
Dependent Claim
29 words
The distributed mail system of claim 1, wherein a
state of operation of each client computer accessing mail
messages via the network is maintained in the mail service
system.
Claim 5
Dependent Claim
49 words
The distributed mail system of claim 1, wherein the
mail service system further includes: a front-end Web server connected to the network;
and back-end interface programs connected to the
front-end Web server, the back-end interface programs
connected to an account manager, a mail server 240,
and the index server.
Claim 6
Dependent Claim
79 words
The distributed mail system of claim 5, wherein the
account manager maintains for each user of the distributed
mail system account information, the account information
including a mail-box address for the user, a user password,
a label state, named queries, filter queries, query
position information, user preferences, and saved
composition states, further including: means for adding labels to the mail messages; means for removing labels from the mail messages;
and means for storing the labels in the full-text
index.
Claim 7
Dependent Claim
53 words
The distributed mail system of claim 6, wherein the
label state of a particular user includes a set of labels
being used by the particular user, and the label state is
down-loaded from the account information to a particular
client computer operated by the particular user while
connected to the mail service system.
Claim 8
Dependent Claim
19 words
The distributed mail system of claim 6, wherein a
particular user composes queries using the client mail
application programs.
Claim 9
Dependent Claim
42 words
The distributed mail system of claim 6 further
including: means for naming the queries, and means for down-loading
the named queries from the account information
to a particular client computer operated by the
particular user while connected to the mail service
system.
Claim 10
Dependent Claim
23 words
The distributed mail system of claim 1, wherein the
client application mail programs execute from within a
browser program of the client computer.