US Patent 7818373 Notifying co-recipients of others currently replying to communications

A mechanism for notifying co-recipients of a communication that other recipients are currently composing a reply to the received communication is provided. The notification may be provided regardless of which type of communication application is being used to reply to the communication. With this mechanism, attribute information for a communication currently being composed on a client communication device using one of a plurality of different communication types is obtained. The attribute information may include an identifier of a communication type currently being used to compose the communication. A previously distributed communication related to the communication currently being composed is identified and one or more recipients of the previously distributed communication are identified. A notification message is sent to one or more communication devices associated with the one or more recipients of the previously distributed communication. The notification message may identify a communication type currently being used to compose the communication.