Managing access rights to a group directory

• US 10,237,276 B2
• Filed: 03/09/2015
• Issued: 03/19/2019
• Est. Priority Date: 03/09/2014
• Status: Active Grant

• Current Assignee: Diro, Inc.
• Original Assignee: Diro, Inc.
• Inventors: Gupta, Vishal
• Primary Examiner(s): Lynch, Sharon S
• Assistant Examiner(s): Farhadian, F J
• Application Number:
  US15/124,022
• Publication Number:
  US 20170012987A1
• Time in Patent Office: 1,471 Days
• Field of Search: None
• CPC Class Codes: G06F 16/13 File access structures, e.g. distributed indices arrangements of input from, or output to, record carriers G06F3/06
• CPC Class Codes: G06Q 10/10 Office automation; Time management
• CPC Class Codes: G06Q 10/107 Computer-aided management of electronic mailing [e-mailing]
• CPC Class Codes: G06Q 50/01 Social networking
• CPC Class Codes: H04L 63/102 Entity profiles
• CPC Class Codes: H04L 63/108 when the policy decisions are valid for a limited amount of time

Abstract

Systems and methods for group-sourced contacts directories are presented. A first member of a shared contacts directory can add contact information of a second user to the directory. Upon addition of the contact information of the second user, the contacts directory discovery system automatically sends a notification to the second user and provides the second user editing rights to the contact information of the directory. Changes made in the directory is automatically synchronized to the across the user devices associated with the members of the directory.

Claims

1. A group-sourced contact directory comprising:

a group-sourced database storing a plurality of contact directories including at least a first contact directory, a second contact directory and a third contact directory, each contact directory comprising contact information of a plurality of members;

the first, second and third contact directories being different from each other but sharable, such that a person represented as a contact stored in the first contact directory is a member of the first contact directory and has viewing and editing privileges to contact information in the first contact directory and also the privilege to mark the first contact directory as private to prevent non-members of the first contact directory from viewing and editing the first contact directory;

a discovery engine comprising a processor and a memory for storing program instructions, the instructions when executed by the processor cause the processor to perform the steps of;

providing a first interface on a first user device for a first person to add a second person'"'"'s first contact information to the first contact directory, wherein the first contact information uniquely identifies the second person using a unique identifier;

in response to the addition of the second person'"'"'s first contact information to the first contact directory;

(1) granting the second person with privileges to both view and edit contact information of members of the first contact directory, where said privileges were denied prior to the addition of the second person'"'"'s first contact information to the first contact directory;

(2) adding to the first contact directory additional contact information associated with the second person by;

searching, using a discovery engine, the group-sourced contact directory database for the unique identifier to identify at least the second contact directory, wherein the second contact directory includes additional contact information associated with the unique identifier associated with the second person, and

adding additional contact information associated with the second person to the first contact directory from the second contact directory, in response to the discovery engine finding the unique identifier in the second contact directory;

(3) in response to the discovery engine finding a third person'"'"'s first contact information in the second contact directory, adding to the second contact directory additional contact information associated with a third person from the third contact directory, and granting the third person with privileges to both view and edit contact information of members of the second contact directory, where said privileges were denied prior to the addition of the third person'"'"'s first contact information to the second contact directory;

in response to finding the unique identifier in the second contact directory and determining that a discovery client is installed on a second user device associated with the second person to receive discovery notifications, said discovery engine dynamically and without any user action transmitting a discovery notification to the second user device, said discovery notification comprising information identifying the second contact directory that comprises contact information of the second person;

in response to finding the unique identifier in the second contact directory and determining that the discovery client is not installed on the second user device to receive discovery notifications, said discovery engine dynamically and without any user action transmitting an invitation to the second user device to install the discovery client;

receiving a request to remove a first contact associated with the first person from the first contact directory; and

in response to removing the first contact from the first contact directory, disabling editing rights to the first contact directory from the first person;

wherein, upon an update of an identified shared contact directory by a member of the identified contact directory, contact data in the contact directory is synchronized with all shared contact directories that are associated with the members of the identified contact directory; and

wherein the identified contact directory is associated with a context criteria that defines contacts that belong to said identified contact directory such that a new user is added to said identified contact directory upon comparison of one or more attributes of said new user with respect to the context criteria.

2. The system of claim 1, wherein the editing rights comprise any or a combination of a right to add a new fourth contact to the first contact directory, a right to remove the first contact from the first contact directory, and a right to edit contact information associated with the first contact.

3. The system of claim 1, wherein addition of the second person comprises adding contact information related to the second person, wherein the contact information includes a phone number.

4. The system of claim 1, wherein the plurality of contact directories were inaccessible by the second person before the second person'"'"'s first contact information was added to the contact directory.

5. The system of claim 1, wherein the request is received from the second user device.