Identifying relationships between message threads

Patent metadata

Field	Value
Publication number	US-10587539-B2
Application number	US-201414209604-A
Country	US
Kind code	B2
Filing date	Mar 13, 2014
Priority date	Mar 13, 2014
Publication date	Mar 10, 2020
Grant date	Mar 10, 2020

Abstract

A message related to a first thread is received, and a fork in the conversation is identified. The received message is placed in a second thread and a display shows the fork and that the two threads are related.

First claim

What is claimed is:

1. A computer-implemented method, comprising:
receiving a message;
determining that the received message is associated with a parent message, wherein
the parent message corresponds to a first thread and has a first plurality of participants that includes a sender of the parent message and recipients of the parent message, and
the received message has a second plurality of participants including a sender of the received message and recipients of the received message;

comparing the second plurality of participants to the first plurality of participants;
based on identifying a difference between the second plurality of participants and the first plurality of participants, identifying a conversation fork between the received message and the parent message;
based on identifying the conversation fork, automatically generating a second thread that includes the received message; and
generating a user interface display comprising:
a received message display element that represents the received message,
a related thread display element that indicates that the second thread forked from the first thread, and
a parent message display element that represents the parent message of the first thread and identifies the first set of recipients associated with the parent message.

2. The computer-implemented method of claim 1 wherein the received message display element comprises message information corresponding to the received message.

3. The computer-implemented method of claim 2 wherein the parent message display element includes a content section indicative of content in the first thread and a recipient section identifying the recipients of the parent message.

4. The computer-implemented method of claim 2 , and further comprising:
based on receiving an indication of user actuation of the related thread display element, automatically displaying a related thread user interface display showing messages in the first thread.

5. The computer-implemented method of claim 4 wherein displaying a related thread user interface display comprises:
displaying the parent message in the first thread, from which the conversation fork was identified.

6. The computer-implemented method of claim 1 wherein the related thread display element identifies a parent/child relationship between the first and second threads, the parent/child relationship indicating that the second thread was started from the first thread.

7. The computer-implemented method of claim 1 wherein generating a user interface display comprises:
displaying a sort user input mechanism.

8. The computer-implemented method of claim 7 and further comprising:
based on an indication of user actuation of the sort user input mechanism, displaying a set of message thread display elements, each corresponding to a different one of a plurality of different threads, the set of thread display elements being visually sorted based on relationships among the plurality of different threads.

9. The computer-implemented method of claim 8 wherein the user interface display represents the second thread under focus and wherein displaying a set of message thread display elements comprises:
displaying only message thread display elements for threads that are related to the second thread.

10. The computer-implemented method of claim 1 , wherein identifying a difference between the second plurality of users and the first plurality of users comprises determining that the second plurality of users is not a superset of the first plurality of user.

11. An electronic messaging system, comprising:
at least one processor; and
memory storing instructions executable by the at least one processor, wherein the instructions, when executed, configure the electronic messaging system to provide:
a conversation identifier component configured to analyze a received message to determine that the received message is associated with a parent message, wherein
the parent message corresponds to a first thread within an existing conversation and has a first plurality of participants that includes a sender of the parent message and recipients of the parent message,
the received message has a second plurality of participants including a sender of the received message and recipients of the received message,
the existing conversation comprises a set of messages in a set of threads, each thread being actionable as a single communication unit, and
the first thread includes a first subset of the messages;

a recipient analysis component configured to compare the second plurality of participants to the first plurality of participants;
a relationship identifier component configured to identify a conversation fork between the received message and the parent message based on a difference between the second plurality of participants and the first plurality of participants;
a conversation generator component configured to:
based on the identified conversation fork and the determination that the parent message corresponds to the first thread, automatically generate a second thread that includes the received message; and

a related thread visualization component configured to generate a user interface display that represents the second thread and includes:
a user input mechanism configured to interact with the second thread; and
a display element that:
displays fork information indicative of an association between the first thread and the second thread; and
includes a navigation link configured to navigate between the second subset of messages and the first subset of messages.

12. The electronic messaging system of claim 11 wherein the relationship identifier component is configured to generate a relationship identifier that identifies the first thread as an ancestor thread to the second thread.

13. The electronic messaging system of claim 12 wherein the relationship identifier component is configured to mark the parent message in the first thread, to which the received message is related, as well as the received message, with the relationship identifier.

14. The electronic messaging system of claim 12 , wherein the relationship identifier component is configured to mark the first thread and the second thread with the relationship identifier.

15. The electronic messaging system of claim 12 wherein the received message comprises a first reply to the parent message, and the recipient analysis component is configured to:
compare a third set of recipients of a second received message that is a second reply to the parent message; and
based on the comparison, place the second received message in a same thread as the first received message.

16. The electronic messaging system of claim 12 wherein the visualization component is configured to generate the user interface display to include a sort user input mechanism, and, based on actuation of the sort user input mechanism, generate the user interface display to include thread display elements, each thread display element corresponding to a different thread, the thread display elements being sorted based on relationships among the threads.

17. The electronic messaging system of claim 11 , wherein the relationship identifier component is configured to identify the conversation fork based on determining that the second set of recipients is not a superset of the first set of recipients.

18. A computing system comprising:
at least one processor; and
memory storing instructions executable by the at least one processor, wherein the instructions, when executed, configure the c

Assignees

• Microsoft Technology Licensing Llc
• Microsoct Tech Licensing Llc

Inventors

• Mahood Justin
• Roth Tali
• Ramanathan Rajesh
• Barcelos Rafael
• Chen Linda
• Panontini Desouza Sana Giselli
• Gregg Ryan

Classifications

• H04L51/04 Primary

  Real-time or near real-time messaging, e.g. instant messaging [IM] · CPC title

• G06F3/0481

  based on specific properties of the displayed interaction object or a metaphor-based environment, e.g. interaction with desktop elements like windows or icons, or assisted by a cursor's changing behaviour or appearance · CPC title

• G06Q10/107 Primary

  Computer-aided management of electronic mailing [e-mailing] · CPC title