Networked platform for creating and supporting communities

• US 20030158897A1
• Filed: 11/30/2000
• Published: 08/21/2003
• Est. Priority Date: 05/09/2000
• Status: Abandoned Application

• Current Assignee: ViryaNet Ltd. (Fortive Corp.)
• Original Assignee: ViryaNet Ltd. (Fortive Corp.)
• Inventors: Ben-Natan, Ron, Miroshnikov, Rosa, Levy, Miri, Kahana, Chava, Zafransky, Lea, Sofer, Oded
• Application Number:
  US09/725,848
• Publication Number:
  US 20030158897A1
• Time in Patent Office: Days
• US Class Current: 709/204
• CPC Class Codes: H04L 67/306 User profiles
• CPC Class Codes: H04L 69/329 in the application layer [OSI layer 7]
• CPC Class Codes: H04L 9/40 Network security protocols

Abstract

A system for defining communities and matching users into said communities, said matched users thereby gaining access to one or more elements associated with said communities; the system comprising a host connected to a network being for communication with a plurality of users, said host being configured for: creating at least one community by defining attributes for each of said communities; and defining one or more elements associated with each of said communities; and assigning attributes to a user, said attributes extracted from information associated with the user; and matching said attributes of at least one user to attributes of at least one community; assigning said user to said community based on the result of said matching; said user thereby gaining access to at least one element associated with said community.

Claims

1. A system for defining communities and matching users into said communities, said matched users thereby gaining access to one or more elements associated with said communities;

the system comprising a host connected to a network being for communication with a plurality of users, said system being configured for;

(i) creating at least one community by defining attributes for each of said communities; and

(ii) defining one or more elements associated with each of said communities; and

(iii) assigning attributes to a user on the basis of data extracted from information associated with the user; and

(iv) matching said attributes of at least one user to attributes of at least one community;

assigning said user to said community based on the result of said matching;

said user thereby gaining access to at least one element associated with said community.

2. The system of claim 1 wherein said information associated with the user is received from input from at least one of a group comprising the user itself, at least one remote database, at least one local database, at least one local system, at least one remote system, at least one web site, at least one custom-built algorithm, and any combination thereof.

3. The system of claim 1 wherein said community attributes are inferred based on data available to said host.

4. The system of claim 1 wherein said community attributes are inferred based on data that is associated with users.

5. The system of claim 1 wherein the host is configured to rematch the attributes of users to attributes of communities automatically whenever there is an occurrence of any one of a group of conditions comprising a change in at least one attribute of at least one community, an update of at least one value of an attribute of at least one community, a change in at least one attribute of a user, an update of at least one value of an attribute of a user or any combination thereof.

6. The system of claim 1 configured such that said elements are associated with a community at a set up time of said community.

7. The system of claim 1 wherein the access of said user to at least one element is according to a permission level being assigned to the community.

8. The system of claim 1 wherein said access of said user to a subset of elements is according to a permission level being assigned to the user.

9. The system of claim 7, wherein said permission level is determinable at setup time of at least one community, for at least one user according to anticipated user attributes.

10. The system of claim 8 wherein said permission level is determinable at setup time of at least one community, for at least one user according to anticipated user attributes.

11. The system of claim 1 wherein at least one element is automatically customizable for said user based on one or more of said user'"'"'s attributes.

12. The system of claim 6 wherein at least one element is automatically customizable once per community, at set up time according to foreseeable user attributes.

13. The system of claim 1 wherein at least one element that is associated with at least one community is parametric;

said parametric element able to receive a value that is specific to a user matched to at least one community, as an argument;

said value being derived from any one of a group comprising a computation, an algorithm, a simple value of a user attribute, a simple mathematical value and any combination thereof that are based on any information available to said host.

17. A method of producing compatible forms comprising tagged fields, the method comprising the steps of:

(a) setting up a hierarchy of labels as nodes on a tree such that each node is specifiable by a descending order of labels,

(ii) tagging fields with labels of an appropriate one of said nodes for a meaning of the field if an appropriate node exists,

(iii) adding a new label as a node to said tree if an appropriate node does not exist, and

(iv) tagging a field with a label of said new node.

such that a second form using fields labeled by the concatenation of the labels marking the nodes of the tree formed from the first form is compatible with said first form.

18. The method of claim 17 wherein said first form is in any one of a group comprising extensible markup language format (XML) and derivatives thereof.

19. The method of claim 17 wherein said second form is any one of a group comprising HTML format and extensions of HTML format.

21. The method of claim 18 wherein said value defines the access gained by the user to at least one element.

20. A method for use on a system comprising a host and a network, having at least one community defined by at least one attribute and having at least one element;

the method comprising selecting at least one attribute of a community, said attribute being parametric and receiving the value of an attribute belonging to a user already matched to said community.

23. The method of claim 20 wherein assignment to said group gives said user access to at least one element associated with said group.

24. The method of claim 20 wherein said group is a subset of a community.

22. A method of dynamically matching a plurality of users to at least one user group, at a host connected via a network to said users, comprising the steps of:

(i) predefining at least one user group in terms of a value of at least one attribute;

(ii) assigning at least one attribute to at least one user;

(iii) obtaining a value for said user attribute;

(iv) matching said user attribute value to said group attribute value, and

(v) assigning said user to said group based on a result of said matching.