US 6,219,694 · Granted 2001-04-17

The BlackBerry Patent That Invented Push Email

Imagine your work computer automatically sending important emails to your phone the moment they arrive, without you having to constantly check. That's what this patent does—it lets a computer system instantly "push" information to a mobile device whenever something important happens, using one shared email address for both.

Curated and verified by the IsItPatented Editorial team

The plain-English version

What it protects

The claim covers a system where a host computer detects when certain events occur (like a new email arriving) and automatically sends repackaged information to a mobile device without the user having to request it. What's protected here is the specific method of watching for triggering events at the host system, wrapping the data in a special format, and pushing it to a mobile device that shares the same electronic address as the host computer.

Why it matters

This patent captures the core innovation behind BlackBerry's dominance in mobile email during the late 1990s and 2000s. Before this, phone users had to manually dial in to check email. This patent's invention of automatic push-notification delivery—where the system decides when to send data to your phone—became fundamental to how modern smartphones work. It transformed mobile devices from passive tools into active recipients of real-time information.

Real-world use

Every time a Gmail notification pops up on your phone the instant an email arrives, you're using technology this patent helped pioneer.

Original USPTO abstract

A system and method for pushing information from a host system to a mobile data communication device upon sensing a triggering event is disclosed. A redirector program operating at the host system enables a user to continuously redirect certain user-selected data items from the host system to the user's mobile data communication device upon detecting that one or more user-defined triggering events has occurred. The redirector program operates in connection with event generating applications and repackaging systems at the host system to configure and detect a particular user-defined event, and then to repackage the user-selected data items in an electronic wrapper prior to pushing the data items to the mobile device. The mobile device and the host system share a common electronic address so that messages generated at either the host system or the mobile data communication device are configured using the common electronic address.

Patent details

Publication number: US 6,219,694
Filing date: 1998-05-29
Grant date: 2001-04-17
Assignee: Research In Motion Limited
Inventor(s): LAZARIDIS MIHAL, MOUSSEAU GARY P.
CPC class: H04W4/12

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