InNova的專利一網告盡

美國InNova公司於2010.7.20.向德克薩斯州東部地區地方法院提起訴訟，指控蘋果、谷歌等36家公司，侵害其US6,018,761號專利，該專利係用於分別正常電子郵件與不需要的廣告垃圾郵件的技術。同時被告的還有：3Com、阿爾卡特-朗訊、國際集團、美洲銀行、花旗集團、愛立信、惠普、IBM、RIM、賽門鐵克、雅虎等公司。

US6,018,761
Title : System for adding to electronic mail messages information obtained from sources external to the electronic mail transport process
Filing Date : 1996.12.11.
Issue Date : 2000.1.25.
Abstract :
An apparatus and method is provided for obtaining message context information regardless of whether or not the sender includes context information, such as full name, address, telephone number, etc. The context can be stored separately from a message and retrieved when the message is read by a recipient when requested. The context might be stored in an indexed database or repository using either a key field provided by the sender or using the fields present in the message for other purposes. The latter approach is useful for finding context information in legacy messages and messages where the sender has taken no action to supply context information. If a key field is not provided by the sender, the "From:" and "Organization:" header fields can be used. In order to populate the database or repository, the domain name portion of the "From:" header field can be used as an index into a "whois" search and the "Organization" name can be passed to a telephone book search engine.