Email Archiving Journal

A US Patent and Trademark Office re-examination has found a basic RPost proof-of-delivery patent valid. In a sweeping decision all 89 of its claims have been left standing against challenges of prior art. Patent holders dream of such things. It is understood to be a so-called "final final" decision covering items such as time-stamp authentication. No one except the PTO knows who made the claims of prior art but that unknown challenger reportedly dumped scads of documentation on the PTO for it to wade through and failed. It's bad news for the slate of companies RPost is suing in federal courts in California, Texas and Virginia for infringing US Patent No 6,182,219 including Swiss Post, Canada Post, Adobe, Docusign, Zix, RightSignature and Farmers Insurance among others. Jury trial dates have now been set for the cases in the Eastern District of Texas for August of ... (more)

Google Wins the Battle of the Interior Department

The US Department of the Interior has moved its e-mail business to Google, which sued when the agency gave Microsoft a five-year $59.3 million cloud-based e-mail contract in 2010 claiming the department's research was "stale" and Microsoft's security wasn't certified for government use. It's going with Google Apps for Government and Gmail instead. It will cover upwards of 90,000 seats. The agency's been reconsidering its original decision since late last year. The deal is worth $34.9 million over seven years to Google and its reseller Onix Networking. Microsoft said it "will eng... (more)

Would Metadata Cleaning Spoil Your Evidence?

RPost's latest integration with Esquire is called iScrub. This new product removes metadata from important "reusable" documents such as loan application forms. One of the questions raised by using a product like this is what effect metadata cleaning would have on evidence used in the courtroom. We asked RPost CEO Zafar Khan to weigh in on how metadata changes electronic documents and the effect that can have. In Dr. Craig Ball's blog, he smartly notes: "Application metadata resides within the file and moves with the file, not changing unless the contents of the file are altered.... (more)

Zumbox Sets Up Joint Venture in Oz

Zumbox, the American digital mail start-up, has changed its overseas strategy. Rather than try to involve the local postal operator - as it has once with New Zealand Post - it's going to go it alone. It's starting in Australia where its wholly owned licensing arm, Zumbox Software Inc, has just climbed in bed with two big publicly traded mail outsourcers to create a joint venture called Digital Post Australia (DPA) that will offer consumers a way to get their paper mail electronically. Digital Post Australia is supposed to be the first digital postal system in Australia. Zumbox ... (more)

Court Finds RPost Patent Valid

A federal court in California has upheld the validity of a key RPost patent reinforcing the company's claims to own the technology for registered, legally recognized, court-admissible evidence of e-mail content and delivery going back to 1995. RPost's 35 patents, granted in 21 countries, broadly cover verifiable proof of e-mail delivery and value-added outbound e-mail processing. On December 27 the District Court for the Central District of California granted RPost a summary judgment finding its US patent 6,182,219 valid. The decision is a lead-up to RPost's infringement suit agai... (more)