WO2001076153A1

WO2001076153A1 - E-mail system issuing accounts dynamically and e-mail sending/receiving method

Info

Publication number: WO2001076153A1
Application number: PCT/KR2000/000913
Authority: WO
Inventors: Ju Ho Lee
Original assignee: Arreo Communications
Priority date: 2000-04-01
Filing date: 2000-08-17
Publication date: 2001-10-11
Also published as: AU2000265995A1

Abstract

An e-mail system for dynamically issuing accounts is provided. The e-mail system includes an e-mail server for reading a recipient's e-mail address included in an e-mail received through Internet and dynamically generating an account corresponding to the recipient, an e-mail reception informer for informing the recipient of the reception of the e-mail using a recipient identification means included in the e-mail address, an e-mail storage unit for storing the received e-mail under the dynamically generated recipient's account when the reception of the e-mail is normally informed by the e-mail reception informer, and an e-mail inquiring unit for inquiring for the e-mail stored in the e-mail storage unit under the recipient's account in response to the recipient's request. Accordingly, a sender can send an e-mail to a recipient if he/she knows only one of the recipient identification means such as the recipient's mobile telephone number, wire telephone number and instant message identifier although the sender does not know the recipient's e-mail address.

Description

E-MAIL SYSTEM ISSUING ACCOUNTS DYNAMICALLY AND E-MAIL SENDING/RECEIVING METHOD

Technical Field The present invention relates to an e-mail system, and more particularly, to an e-mail system for dynamically issuing accounts.

As the Internet is developed, e-mail has been universalized. Generally, an e-mail address is composed of a user identifier, a separator and a mail server domain name. For example, in an e-mail address kildong@yaaho.com, "kildong" is a user identifier, "@" is a separator for separating a user identifier from a mail server domain name, and "yaaho.com" is a mail server domain name. The user identifier of an e-mail address is not determined by a predetermined rule, but arbitrarily determined by a user when an e-mail account is issued to the user. However, the same e-mail addresses cannot be used in one mail server. Accordingly, when an e-mail address that a user desires to use in a particular mail server has already been used, the user must select another e-mail address.

Therefore, even if the domain name of a company for which a user works is widely known, the e-mail address used by the user cannot be easily known. For example, even if it is known that a person named "Hong, Kil-dong" works for a company having a domain name, "yaaho.com", the person named "Hong, Kil-dong" does not necessarily have an e-mail address such as "kildong@yaaho.com" or "hongkildong@yaaho.com". In this case, it will be very convenient if a method for easily finding the e-mail address of a particular person is provided.

The e-mail address of a particular user is frequently changed due to the change of user's occupation or the change of an Internet sen/ice provider accessed by the user's computer. For example, it is assumed that a person named "Hong, Kil-dong" used an e-mail address "kildong@yaaho.com" while he/she was working for a company having a domain name, "yaaho.com". When the person named "Hong, Kil-dong" leaves the company and takes up another job in a company having a domain name, "assa.co.kr", his/her e-mail address, "kildong@yaaho.com", becomes useless. Thereafter, when someone sends a mail to the e-mail address, "kildong@yaaho.com", the desired recipient cannot receive the mail any more. Here, it will be very convenient if an e-mail address system allowing a user to use e-mail without changing an existing e-mail address even when the user's e-mail address is changed due to the change of the user's occupation or the change of ISP accessed by the user's computer is provided. Recently, many Internet business companies provide services of issuing e-mail accounts for free, so the number of users having two or more e-mail accounts is increasing. A user can use such a service only when he/she accesses a corresponding web page, registers himself/herself as a member, and is issued with an e-mail account. In such a system, it is inconvenient for a user to go through the registration procedure, and it is difficult for a service provider to secure a large number of members. Accordingly, it will be very convenient if an e-mail system for allowing users to be issued with e-mail accounts without going through the registration procedure is provided. Meanwhile, mobile telephones have been spread as much widely as the Internet. A larger number of persons have mobile telephones at present, and there are the prospects that most adults will have mobile telephones in the near future taking into account the development of personal communication system technology. According to conventional technology, an e-mail cannot be sent to a recipient when the recipient's e-mail address is not known even if the recipient's mobile telephone number is known.

Background Art

An e-mail system for informing a user of the e-mail address of a certain recipient when the user knows the recipient's mobile telephone number has been proposed. In such an e-mail system, an e-mail account having a certain mobile telephone number as a user identifier is issued to the corresponding telephone number. With such an arrangement, all available mobile telephone numbers are issued with e-mail accounts. In other words, according to the conventional e-mail system, e-mail accounts are generated regardless of users' registration/non-registration so that anyone can send an e-mail to the owner of a mobile telephone number which is known. Anyone who is assigned a mobile telephone number can conveniently use e-mail even if he/she is not registered in a mail server in the conventional e-mail system generating e-mail accounts using users' mobile telephone numbers.

In the conventional e-mail system described above, the owner of a telephone number can be informed of the reception of an e-mail for the corresponding telephone number. Accordingly, anyone having a mobile telephone can be informed that e-mail is sent to him/her by someone and check the e-mail even if he/she did not register an account.

The conventional e-mail system generates an arbitrary password for a mobile telephone user and informs the user of the password through the user's mobile telephone to prevent unauthorized persons from viewing the content of an e-mail message without permission when the e-mail for the user is arrived. Accordingly, the user can check e-mails sent to him/her at an issued e-mail account using the password.

However, in the conventional e-mail system, e-mail accounts for all mobile telephone users are prepared in advance, so e-mail accounts are assigned to even mobile telephone users who do not use this e-mail system. Accordingly, when the ratio of mobile telephone users using the e-mail system is not very high, system resources are squandered. Moreover, it is nearly impossible to provide e-mail service throughout the world using such a conventional e-mail system.

Disclosure of the Invention To solve the above problems, it is a first object of the present invention to provide an e-mail system for dynamically issuing e-mail accounts, in which a senderof an e-mail is allowed to easily know the e-mail address of a recipient by using a recipient identification means such as a mobile telephone number, wire telephone number or an instant message identifier uniquely assigned to an e-mail recipient as the user identifier of the recipient's e-mail address, and the resources of the e-mail system can be more effectively used by dynamically generating e-mail accounts. According to this e-mail system, received e-mails can be distributed, and the cost for contacting recipients can be saved, by hierarchically linking a plurality of e-mail systems.

It is a second object of the present invention to provide an e-mail receiving method of dynamically issuing e-mail accounts.

It is a third object of the present invention to provide an e-mail sending method of dynamically issuing e-mail accounts.

Accordingly, to achieve the first object of the invention, there is provided an e-mail system for dynamically issuing accounts, including an e-mail server for reading a recipient's e-mail address included in an e-mail received through Internet and dynamically generating an account corresponding to the recipient, an e-mail reception informer for informing the recipient of the reception of the e-mail using a recipient identification means included in the e-mail address, an e-mail storage unit for storing the received e-mail under the dynamically generated recipient's account when the reception of the e-mail is normally informed by the e-mail reception informer, and an e-mail inquiring unit for inquiring for the e-mail stored in the e-mail storage unit under the recipient's account in response to the recipient's request.

The e-mail server includes an e-mail sending/receiving unit for sending an e-mail and receiving an e-mail through the Internet, an e-mail analyzing unit for analyzing the e-mail received by the e-mail sending/receiving unit by items including the recipient's e-mail address, recipient, sender, title and contents, and an e-mail address identification unit for reading the recipient's e-mail address analyzed by the e-mail analyzing unit and dynamically generating the recipient's account when it is determined that a service is possible.

The e-mail system further includes an e-mail forwarding unit for forwarding the received e-mail through the Internet to another e-mail system which is determined by the e-mail address identification unit reading the recipient's e-mail address. To achieve the second object of the invention, there is provided an e-mail receiving method of dynamically issuing accounts, including the steps of (a) reading a recipient's e-mail address included in an e-mail received through Internet and dynamically generating an account corresponding to the recipient, (b) informing the recipient of the reception of the e-mail using a recipient identification means included in the e-mail address, (c) storing the received e-mail under the dynamically generated recipient's account when the reception of the e-mail is normally informed in the step (b), and (d) inquiring for the e-mail stored under the recipient's account in response to the recipient's request. The step (a) includes the sub-steps of (a1) receiving the e-mail through the Internet, (a2) analyzing the received e-mail by items including the recipient's e-mail address, recipient, sender, title and contents, and (a3) reading the recipient's e-mail address and dynamically generating the recipient's account when it is determined that a service is possible. To achieve the third object of the invention, there is provided an e-mail sending method of dynamically issuing accounts, including the steps of (a) receiving a user identification means from a user connected through Internet, (b) authenticating the user, (c) dynamically generating a sender's account, (d) storing an e-mail composed by the user under the sender's account, and (e) setting the user identification means as the user identifier of the user's e-mail address and transmitting the e-mail to the Internet.

The step (b) includes the sub-steps of (b1) generating a password and transmitting the password to the user using the user identification means, and (b2) receiving the password from the user and comparing the received password with the originally generated password to authenticate the user.

Brief Description of the Drawings

The above objectives and advantages of the present invention will become more apparent by describing preferred embodiments thereof in detail with reference to the attached drawings in which:

FIG. 1 is a schematic diagram illustrating an environment where an e-mail system according to the present invention is connected to the Internet and wire and mobile telephone networks;

FIG. 2 is a block diagram illustrating the configuration of an e-mail system dynamically issuing e-mail accounts according to the present invention;

FIG. 3 is a conceptional diagram illustrating a procedure in which an e-mail system in Korea forwards a received e-mail to another e-mail system in the United States through the Internet; FIG. 4 is a flowchart illustrating an e-mail receiving method of dynamically issuing e-mail accounts according to the present invention;

FIG. 5 is a flowchart illustrating an e-mail sending method of dynamically issuing e-mail accounts according to the present invention; and FIG. 6 is a detailed diagram illustrating a procedure of authenticating a user during an e-mail sending procedure according to the present invention.

Best mode for carrying out the Invention

In FIG. 1, reference numeral 100 denotes a user terminal, and reference numeral 200 denotes an e-mail system according to the present invention. Reference numeral 300 denotes a mobile telephone, and reference numeral 400 denotes a base station. Reference numeral 500 denotes Internet, and reference numeral 600 conceptually denotes a telephone network including a mobile telephone network and a wire telephone network. Here, the Internet 500 designates a computer communication network connected throughout the world using TCP/IP. The user terminal 100 is provided with a web browser (not shown) which is software used for reading HTML documents, which are standard documents on a web, and communicating with a web server using HTTP. As shown in FIG. 1 , the e-mail system 200 according to the present invention may send data to the mobile telephone 300 through the wire telephone network and the mobile telephone network, or may be connected to the mobile telephone 300 directly through the mobile telephone network.

Referring to FIG. 2, an embodiment of the e-mail system 200 according to the present invention includes a network interface 210, an e-mail server 220, an e-mail forwarding unit 230, an e-mail reception informer 240, an e-mail storage unit 250, an e-mail inquiring unit 260 and a web server 270. The user identifier of an e-mail address used in the e-mail system 200 shown in FIG. 2 is not arbitrarily determined by a user when the user registers in the e-mail system 200, but is determined by a sender selecting one of the recipient identification means such as the recipient's mobile telephone number, wire telephone number and instant message identifier.

For the clarity of description, it is assumed that the domain name of the e-mail system 200 is "mobilemail.com", and a user's mobile telephone number is used as the user identifier of the user's e-mail address. For example, when the mobile telephone number of a certain recipient is 011-123-4567, the recipient's e-mail address will be "0111234567@mobilemail.com". A dash "-" may be included between numerals like "011-123-4567@mobilemail.com" or "011-1234567@mobilemail.com". When a user in a foreign country sends an e-mail to a recipient in Korea, a country code for Korea, "82", may be added to the user identifier, so that the recipient's e-mail address is "820111234567@mobilemail.com".

The network interface 210 is the combination of hardware and software supporting TCP/IP so as to allow the access to the Internet.

The e-mail server 220 reads an e-mail address included in an e-mail received through the Internet 500 and dynamically generates a recipient's account corresponding to the e-mail address. The e-mail server 220 includes an e-mail sending/receiving unit 222, an e-mail analyzing unit 223 and an e-mail address identification unit 224.

The e-mail sending/receiving unit 222 sends or receives an e-mail to or from the Internet 500 via the network interface 210. The e-mail sending/receiving unit checks an e-mail received from the Internet 500 whether a user identifier included in a recipient's e-mail address is a usable mobile telephone number. When it is determined that the user identifier is an unusable mobile telephone number, the e-mail sending/receiving unit 222 sends a message informing a sender that the recipient is unknown.

The e-mail analyzing unit 223 classifies e-mails received by the e-mail sending/receiving unit 222 by detailed items such as e-mail addresses, recipients, senders, titles or contents, and analyzes the e-mails to find out whether they are correctly composed.

The e-mail address identification unit 224 reads an e-mail address analyzed by the e-mail analyzing unit 223 and determines whether the service can be performed. When it is determined that a mobile telephone number corresponding to the user identifier of the e-mail address is usable for the e-mail reception informer 240 in the e-mail system 200 to contact a recipient, the e-mail address identification unit 224 dynamically generates a recipient's accounts corresponding to the mobile telephone number. Here, dynamically generating a recipient's account is issuing a recipient's account corresponding to the recipient's mobile telephone number when an e-mail for the recipient is received, instead of setting recipients' accounts for all usable mobile telephone numbers in advance. The e-mail address identification unit 224 preferably recognizes a mobile telephone number without including a dash "-" even if a dash "-" is included in the expression of the mobile telephone number.

When a country code is included in a mobile telephone number corresponding to the user identifier of an e-mail address, and when the e-mail system cannot contact a recipient in the corresponding country or when contacting a recipient costs much, the e-mail address identification unit 224 requests the e-mail forwarding unit 230 to forward the received e-mail to another e-mail system according to the present invention, which can easily contact the recipient in the corresponding country.

The e-mail forwarding unit 230 forwards the received e-mail via the Internet 500 to another e-mail system selected based on the recipient's e-mail address read by the e-mail address identification unit 224. Here, the country code is removed from the recipient's mobile telephone number included in the recipient's address of the e-mail to be forwarded, and the domain name of the e-mail address is changed into the domain name of the e-mail system to which the e-mail is forwarded. FIG. 3 is a conceptual diagram illustrating a procedure in which an e-mail system 200a in Korea forwards a received e-mail to another e-mail system 200b in the United States through the Internet 500. Reference numerals 200a and 200b denote e-mail systems having a configuration as shown in FIG. 2. The e-mail reception informer 240 informs a recipient of an e-mail the reception of the e-mail through the wire/mobile telephone network 600 using the recipient's mobile telephone number included in the recipient's e-mail address. For this, the e-mail reception informer 240 may include a usual wire telephone interface or a mobile telephone interface directly connected to a mobile telephone network. The e-mail reception informer 240 may be configured such that a message is not transmitted to the mobile telephone 300 through the wire/mobile telephone network 600, but the message passes through the Internet 500 and a gateway (not shown) to the mobile telephone network and is transmitted to the mobile telephone 300 through the mobile telephone network. The e-mail reception informer 240 arbitrarily generates a password for the authentification of a recipient afterwards and transmits the password to the mobile telephone 300 corresponding to the mobile telephone number together with a short message informing the reception of e-mail. In an embodiment in which a user identifier included in a recipient's e-mail address is the recipient's wire telephone number, the e-mail reception informer 240 generates a password, composes a voice uttering the password and a message informing the reception of an e-mail, and transmits the voice to a terminal (not shown) corresponding to the wire telephone number through the wire/mobile telephone network 600.

Alternatively, in an embodiment in which a user identifier included in a recipient's e-mail address is the recipient's instant message identifier, the e-mail reception informer 240 generates a password and transmits the password and a message informing the reception of an e-mail to a user terminal (not shown) corresponding to the instant message identifier through the Internet 500.

Once the e-mail reception informer 240 normally informs the recipient of reception of the e-mail, the e-mail storage unit 250 stores the received e-mail under the dynamically generated account of the recipient. The e-mail inquiring unit 260 receives a recipient's mobile telephone number and a password from the recipient's terminal (not shown). When the received password is the same as the password generated by the e-mail reception informer 240, the e-mail inquiring unit 260 inquires for an e-mail under the recipient's account, which is stored in the e-mail storage unit, and transmits the e-mail to the recipient in response to the recipient's request. Here, the recipient's terminal must have an e-mail client program installed corresponding to the e-mail inquiring unit 260.

The web server 270 includes a login processor 272 for allowing a user connected through the Internet 500 to log in and an e-mail composer 274 for dynamically generating a sender's account depending on the control by the user, composing an e-mail, controlling the e-mail storage unit 250 to store the composed e-mail, and controlling the e-mail sending/receiving unit 222 to send the e-mail. Here, dynamically generating a sender's account indicates issuing a sender's account corresponding to the sender 's mobile telephone number when the sender composes e-mail for the recipient, instead of setting senders' accounts for all usable mobile telephone numbers in advance.

The login processor 272 generates a password and transmits the password to the user using the mobile telephone number of the user connected through the Internet 500. It is preferable to authenticate that the user is an authentic owner of the mobile telephone number by letting the user enter the mobile telephone number and the password transmitted to the user.

The web server 270 preferably provides a web service for receiving a recipient's mobile telephone number and a password from a recipient's terminal unprovided with an e-mail client program corresponding to the e-mail inquiring unit 260 over a web and inquiring for an e-mail under the recipient's account which is stored in the e-mail storage unit 250 in response to the recipient's request when the received password is the same as that generated by the e-mail reception informer 240.

The operation of an e-mail system dynamically issuing accounts according to the present invention will be more fully described. An e-mail receiving procedure of dynamically issuing accounts will be first described with reference to FIG. 4. The e-mail sending/receiving unit 222 in the e-mail server 220 always checks whether a new e-mail is received through the Internet 500. Once an e-mail is received in step S100, the e-mail sending/receiving unit 222 determines whether a user identifier included in the recipient e-mail address of the received e-mail is a usable mobile telephone number, in step S110. When it is determined that the user identifier is not a usable telephone number, for example, when a character is included in the user identifier, the e-mail sending/receiving unit 222 sends a message informing that a recipient is unknown to the sender of the e-mail and stands by ready to receive another e-mail. When the user identifier is a usable mobile telephone number, the e-mail analyzing unit 223 analyzes the received e-mail by items such as a recipient e-mail address, a recipient, a sender, a title and contents in step S120.

The e-mail address identification unit 224 reads the recipient e-mail address in step S130 and determines whether the e-mail system 200 is a destination in step S140. Here, the e-mail address identification unit 224 preferably removes a dash "-" when it is included in the mobile telephone number when recognizing the mobile telephone number.

When it is determined that the e-mail system 200 is the destination of the received e-mail, that is, the mobile telephone number which is the user identifier of the e-mail address is a number through which the e-mail reception informer 240 can make communication, the e-mail address identification unit 224 dynamically generate an account for the recipient corresponding to the mobile telephone number, in step S150. Since it may be the waste of resources to previously generate e-mail accounts corresponding to mobile telephone numbers for everybody having the mobile telephone numbers, in this invention a recipient's account corresponding to a recipient's mobile telephone number is issued only when the e-mail system 200 receives an e-mail and can inform the recipient of the reception of the e-mail. Meanwhile, when the e-mail system 200 is not the destination of the received e-mail, the e-mail forwarding unit 230 forwards the received e-mail through the Internet 500 to another e-mail system according to the present invention, which can easily contact the recipient, in step S220. Here, for the recipient's mobile telephone number included in the recipient e-mail address of the forwarded e-mail, only a portion necessary for the e-mail system to receive the forwarded e-mail to recognize the recipient is included, and the original domain name is preferably changed into the domain name of the e-mail system to receive the forwarded e-mail. Thereafter, in step S160, the e-mail reception informer 240 informs the recipient of the reception of the e-mail using the recipient's mobile telephone number included in the recipient e-mail address. Here, it is necessary to assign a password to the generated recipient's account to prevent persons other than the authorized recipient from inquiring for and viewing the e-mail. Accordingly, the e-mail reception informer 240 arbitrarily generates a password for authenticating the recipient afterwards and sends the generated password to the recipient together with a short message informing the recipient of the reception of the e-mail.

The short message may be as follows. "You've got an e-mail. You can check the e-mail at www.mobilemail.com. The e-mail account is your mobile telephone number, and the password is 3209."

When the e-mail reception informer 240 normally informs the recipient of the reception of the e-mail in step S170, the e-mail storage unit 250 stores the received e-mail under the dynamically generated recipient's account in step S 180.

Then, when an e-mail client program corresponding to the e-mail inquiring unit 260 has been installed in the recipient's terminal, the recipient informed of the reception of a new e-mail can access the e-mail inquiring unit 260, enter the recipient's mobile telephone number and the password, and inquire for the e-mail stored under the recipient's account in the e-mail storage unit 250, in step S190. Meanwhile, when an e-mail client program has not been installed in the recipient's terminal, the recipient can enter his/her mobile tefephone number and the assigned password through the web server 270 and inquire for the e-mail stored under the recipient's account in the e-mail storage unit 250.

Alternatively, when the e-mail reception informer 240 does not normally inform the recipient of the reception of the e-mail, a message for informing the sender of the e-mail that the recipient cannot be contact is sent to the sender in step S200, and the generated account for the recipient is released in step S210.

As described above, an account dynamically generated for a recipient is released when a predetermined time has lapsed since it was issued. Therefore, the resources of the e-mail system 200 can be efficiently used in the present invention. Under the state where a sender's account is not previously issued in the e-mail system 200 according to the present invention, it may happen that anyone can access the e-mail system 200 and sends an e-mail in another's name. An e-mail sending procedure of dynamically issuing accounts while preventing the above problem will be described in detail with reference to FIGS. 5 and 6.

A user accesses the web server 270 of the e-mail system 200 through the Internet 500. Then, the login processor 272 of the web server 270 sends a login screen to the user terminal 100 and receives a mobile telephone number from the user, in step S300. In steps S310 and S320, the login processor 272 generates and sends a password to the user using the mobile telephone number of the user accessing the web server 270 through the Internet 500. Then, in step S330, the login processor 272 receives the user's mobile telephone number and the password from the user. In step S340, it can be authenticated that the user is the authentic owner of the mobile telephone number by determining whether the password received from the user is the same as that generated in step S310. Such steps are illustrated in FIG. 6 more clearly. When a user terminal 100 accesses the home page of an e-mail system 200 in step a1, the e-mail system 200 sends a login screen to the user terminal 100 in step a2 and receives a mobile telephone number entered by the user from the user terminal 100 in step a3. The e-mail system 200 sends a screen informing a password corresponding to the input mobile telephone number to the user terminal 100 in step a4, transmits the password to user's mobile telephone 300 in step a5. The user terminal 100 inputs the password that the user recognizes through user's mobile telephone 300, and sends the password to the e-mail system 200 in step a6.

When it is authenticated that the user is the authentic owner of the received mobile telephone number, the e-mail composer 274 dynamically generates a sender's account for the user in step S350 and provides an environment allowing the user to compose e-mail in step S360. In step 370, the e-mail composed by the user is stored in the e-mail storage unit 250 under the user's control. In step S380, the composed e-mail is transmitted to the Internet 500 through the e-mail sending/receiving unit 222.

The resources of the e-mail system 200 according to the present invention can be more efficiently used by releasing a sender's account dynamically generated during an e-mail sending procedure when a predetermined time has lapsed since it was issued.

The embodiments using a mobile telephone number as the user identifier of an e-mail address have been described, but the present invention is not restricted thereto. In other words, the present invention can also be applied to a case where a recipient identification means such as a wire telephone number or an instant message identifier, which corresponds to the recipient, is used as the user identifier of an e-mail address.

A unique identifier is given to the user of a particular instant message so that the user can communicate messages with other users through an instant message program. However, for an instant message, the length of a transmitted message is greatly restricted, and a file such as an image or voice cannot be attached to the message. Accordingly, it is preferable to use an e-mail when a user intends to transmit a large capacity of message including multimedia data. However, when a sender does not know a recipient's e-mail address but the recipient's instant message identifier, the sender cannot use an existing e-mail system.

An embodiment using an instant message identifier in the e-mail system 200 according to the present invention is the same as the embodiment using a mobile telephone number described above, with the exception that the reception of an e-mail and a password are informed using an instant message instead of using a short message for a mobile telephone. Thus, a detailed description thereof will be omitted.

An embodiment using a wire telephone number in the e-mail system 200 according to the present invention is the same as the embodiment using a mobile telephone number described above, with the exception that the wire telephone number is dialed, and the reception of an e-mail and a password are informed using a voice instead of using a short message for a mobile telephone. Thus, a detailed description thereof will be omitted. Although the invention has been described with reference to particular embodiments, it will be apparent to one of ordinary skill in the art that modifications of the described embodiment may be made without departing from the spirit and scope of the invention. The embodiments of the present invention should be construed in descriptive sense only and not for purposes of limitation. The scope of the invention is set fourth in the following claims.

Industrial Applicability

According to the present invention, a sender can send an e-mail to a recipient if he/she knows only one of the means for identifying the recipient, such as the recipient's mobile telephone number, wire telephone number and instant message identifier, although the sender does not know the recipient's e-mail address.

In addition, the present invention automatically issues an e-mail account to one of the means for identifying the recipient, such as the recipient's mobile telephone number, wire telephone number and instant message identifier, so that a user can use an e-mail even if he/she does not register an e-mail account in advance.

Moreover, the present invention dynamically issues an e-mail account only when an e-mail for a recipient is received, or when a sender composes an e-mail, thereby saving the resources of a system.

According to the present invention, a plurality of e-mail systems can be hierarchically linked, thereby distributing received e-mails and decreasing the cost for contacting recipients.

Claims

What is claimed is:

1. An e-mail system for dynamically issuing accounts, comprising: an e-mail server for reading a recipient's e-mail address included in an e-mail received through Internet and dynamically generating an account corresponding to the recipient; an e-mail reception informer for informing the recipient of the reception of the e-mail using a recipient identification means included in the e-mail address; an e-mail storage unit for storing the received e-mail under the dynamically generated recipient's account when the reception of the e-mail is normally informed by the e-mail reception informer; and an e-mail inquiring unit for inquiring for the e-mail stored in the e-mail storage unit under the recipient's account in response to the recipient's request.

2. The e-mail system of claim 1 , wherein the e-mail server comprises: an e-mail sending/receiving unit for sending an e-mail and receiving an e-mail through the Internet; an e-mail analyzing unit for analyzing the e-mail received by the e-mail sending/receiving unit by items including the recipient's e-mail address, recipient, sender, title and contents; and an e-mail address identification unit for reading the recipient's e-mail address analyzed by the e-mail analyzing unit and dynamically generating the recipient's account when it is determined that a service is possible.

3. The e-mail system of claim 2, further comprising an e-mail forwarding unit for forwarding the received e-mail through the Internet to another e-mail system which is determined by the e-mail address identification unit reading the recipient's e-mail address.

4. The e-mail system of claim 2, further comprising a web server comprising a login processor for allowing a user connected through the Internet to log in; and an e-mail composer for dynamically generating a sender's account, composing an e-mail, controlling the e-mail storage unit to store the composed e-mail, and controlling the e-mail sending/receiving unit to send the composed e-mail, depending on the user's control.

5. The e-mail system of claim 4, wherein the login processor generates a password, transmits the password to the user connected through the Internet using the user's mobile telephone number, and authenticates that the user is an authentic owner of the mobile telephone number by letting the user enter the mobile telephone number and the password.

6. The e-mail system of claim 1 , wherein the recipient's identification means is a mobile telephone number, and the e-mail reception informer generates a password and transmits a short message for informing that the e-mail is received and the generated password to the recipient through a mobile communication network using the mobile telephone number.

7. The e-mail system of claim 1 , the recipient's identification means is the recipient's wire telephone number, and the e-mail reception informer generates a password, composes a voice uttering the password and a message informing the reception of the e-mail, and transmits the voice to the recipient through a wire communication network using the wire telephone number.

8. The e-mail system of claim 1 , wherein the recipient's identification means is an instant message identifier, and the e-mail reception informer generates a password and transmits a message for informing that the e-mail is received and the generated password to the recipient through Internet using the instant message identifier.

9. An e-mail receiving method of dynamically issuing accounts, comprising the steps of:

(a) reading a recipient's e-mail address included in an e-mail received through Internet and dynamically generating an account corresponding to the recipient;

(b) informing the recipient of the reception of the e-mail using a recipient identification means included in the e-mail address;

(c) storing the received e-mail under the dynamically generated recipient's account when the reception of the e-mail is normally informed in the step (b); and

(d) inquiring for the e-mail stored under the recipient's account in response to the recipient's request.

10. The e-mail receiving method of claim 9, wherein the step (a) comprises the sub-steps of:

(a1) receiving the e-mail through the Internet;

(a2) analyzing the received e-mail by items including the recipient's e-mail address, recipient, sender, title and contents; and

(a3) reading the recipient's e-mail address and dynamically generating the recipient's account when it is determined that a sen/ice is possible.

11. The e-mail receiving method of claim 10, wherein the step (a) further comprises the sub-step of (a4) forwarding the received e-mail through the Internet to an e-mail system which is determined by reading the recipient's e-mail address, when it is determined that the sen/ice is impossible in the step (a3).

12. The^* e-mail receiving method of claim 9, wherein the recipient's identification means is a mobile telephone number and the step (b) comprises generating a password and transmitting a short message for informing that the e-mail is received and the generated password to the recipient through a mobile communication network using the mobile telephone number.

13. The e-mail receiving method of claim 9, wherein the recipient's identification means is the recipient's wire telephone number and the step (b) comprises generating a password, composing a voice uttering the password and a message informing the reception of the e-mail, and transmitting the voice to the recipient through a wire communication network using the wire telephone number.

14. The e-mail receiving method of claim 9, wherein the recipient's identification means is an instant message identifier and the step (b) comprises generating a password and transmitting a message for informing that the e-mail is received and the generated password to the recipient through Internet using the instant message identifier.

15. An e-mail sending method of dynamically issuing accounts, comprising the steps of:

(a) receiving a user identification means from a user connected through Internet;

(b) authenticating the user;

(c) dynamically generating a sender's account;

(d) storing an e-mail composed by the user under the sender's account; and (e) setting the user identification means as the user identifier of the user's e-mail address and transmitting the e-mail to the Internet.

16. The e-mail sending method of claim 15, wherein the step (b) comprises the sub-steps of:

(b1) generating a password and transmitting the password to the user using the user identification means; and

(b2) receiving the password from the user and comparing the received password with the originally generated password to authenticate the user.