CONTEST
Competed
$5,000
This contest is closed.
Problem
Patexia seeks prior art for US Patents 7,672,998 (US ‘998) and 8,271,596 (US ‘596), which allegedly describe systems, mechanisms and techniques that control transmission of outbound messages, such as e-mail or other types of messages, onto a computer network from an originator computer system.
Online communication messages (such as email) can be convenient and fast. On the other hand, it can be easily abused, too. Message limit/quota is, thus, usually implemented in order to prevent users from sending too many messages. The two patents in this Contest allegedly describe the systems/methods that can control the transmission of messages from an originating computer (or computer system) to a receiving computer (or computer system) by enforcing a message limit/quota operation.
The system described in the two patents is comprised of:
- an originator computer system
- an originating mail server
- a receiving mail server
The originator computer system is connected to the originating mail server, and together they form a sending side.
In order to carry out this message limit/quota method, the two patents describe the following steps:
- create an account name and network address pair dynamically
- detect an outbound message (which is associated with an originator identity) from the originator computer system on the sending side
- verify the originator identity by comparing the network address with the address stored in the account name and network address pair
- check the message count and the message limit associated with the originator identity, and produce a message transmission result
- if there is a transmit value in the message transmission result, transmit the outbound message from the originating mail server to the receiving mail server
- if there is a no-transmit value in the message transmission result, prevent transmission of the outbound message from the originating mail server to the receiving mail server
Figure 1. Structure of the outbound message limit/quota system
Bonus Points
- +5 for references that are non-patent literature
- +5 for references published in a foreign language other than English
Learn more about bonus points at our Blog.
Questions
| # | Question | Value |
|---|---|---|
| 1 | Was the reference filed or published before May 16th, 2000? | T/F |
| 2 | Does the reference describe a computer-implemented method which controls message transmission between an originator computer system and a receiving mail server through an originating mail server? | 3 |
| 3 | Does the originator computer system connect with the originating mail server to form a sending side? | 3 |
| 4 | Does this method dynamically create an account name and network address pair? | 5 |
| 5 | Does this method detect an outbound message (which is associated with an originator identity) from the originator computer system on the sending side? | 3 |
| 6 | Does this method verify the originator identity by comparing the network address with the address stored in the account name and network address pair? | 6 |
| 7 | Does this method perform a quota enforcement operation by checking to see if the message count exceeds the message limit? | 20 |
| 8 | In addition to or as an alternative, does this method perform a quota enforcement operation calculating the difference between the message count and the message limit associated with the originator identity? | 20 |
| 9 | If the method finds that the message count does not exceed the message limit, does the method record that transmission is allowed, and subsequently allow the outbound message to be sent? | 15 |
| 10 | If the method finds that the message count exceeds the message limit, does the method record that transmission is not allowed, and subsequently prevent the outbound message from being sent? | 10 |
| 11 | In addition to or as an alternative, does this method use the difference between the message count and message limit to record that transmission is allowed, and subsequently modify the outbound message to be sent to a number of recipients equal to or less than the difference? | 15 |
Additional Notes
This is a Prior Art Search contest aimed at determining if a patent idea was known and publicly available before a patent was filed.
This contest will close on Sunday, November 2nd, 2014 at 11:59 PM PST.
Please review the Contest Rules. For more information on how to submit to this Contest type, please read the Intro to Prior Art Search page.
Please review the full list of known references.
