Information delivery system and method including restriction processing

• US 5,940,843 A
• Filed: 10/08/1997
• Issued: 08/17/1999
• Est. Priority Date: 10/08/1997
• Status: Expired due to Term

• Current Assignee: Thomson Reuters Global Resources Unlimited Company (The Woodbridge Co. Ltd.)
• Original Assignee: Multex Systems Incorporated
• Inventors: Leisy, Jacques, Kolfman, Michael, Prohorov, Dmitry, Zucknovich, Stephen M., Yackubovich, Alex, Urazov, Yuri, Baird, George, Blazek, Paul, Kitain, Eduard
• Primary Examiner(s): Kulik, Paul V.
• Assistant Examiner(s): HOMERE, JEAN RAYMOND
• Application Number:
  US08/947,257
• Time in Patent Office: 678 Days
• Field of Search: 707/9, 707/10, 707/516, 707/2, 705/35, 395/200.49, 395/188.01
• US Class Current: 715/210
• CPC Class Codes: G06Q 40/00 Finance; Insurance; Tax strategies; Processing of corporate or income taxes
• CPC Class Codes: G06Q 40/04 Trading; Exchange, e.g. stocks, commodities, derivatives or currency exchange
• CPC Class Codes: H04L 63/105 Multiple levels of security
• CPC Class Codes: Y10S 707/99932 Access augmentation or optimizing
• CPC Class Codes: Y10S 707/99939 Privileged access

Abstract

The electronic distribution of research documents over the world wide web or other network to investors. A repository server receives research documents from contributors. A restriction subsystem server is selectively coupled to the contributor workstation. The restriction subsystem server which includes manages and stores "restriction" and "review" information of companies, relative to contributors. A contributor identifies (via electronic communication or otherwise) to the restriction subsystem server a "restriction" and/or "review" status of a company relative to the contributor. A particular company may be identified as "RESTRICTED" if the contributor has a current banking or financial interest in the company. Additionally, a company may be identified as "UNDER REVIEW" if the contributor believes its opinion about the company may change based on a news event. Moreover, a company may be identified as "UNDER EXTENDED REVIEW," if, for example, the contributor is not presently "covering" that company. Each time the repository server is queried for a list of reports or documents (i.e., document titles or headlines), the repository server determines whether to provide a particular title to the viewer workstation (via a viewer server or web server) to the user based on the restriction status of the contributor of the document relative to the restriction status of the company or companies associated with the document.

Claims

1. A method for providing a list of identifiers corresponding to a plurality of electronic documents, the documents being stored in a central repository, each of the documents being associated with a corresponding contributor, a corresponding company, and a corresponding identifier, the method comprising the steps of:

electronically receiving from a remote computer a request for a list of identifiers;

selecting a subset of the documents in accordance with the request;

for each of the documents in the subset,

i) comparing the corresponding contributor and the corresponding company with stored data, the stored data identifying a stored contributor, a stored company, and an identified relationship between the stored contributor and stored company;

ii) if the corresponding contributor matches the stored contributor, and the corresponding company matches the stored company, determining whether to exclude the corresponding identifier from the list of identifiers as a function of the identified relationship; and

transmitting the list of identifiers to the remote computer.

2. The method of claim 1 further comprising the step of:

if the corresponding contributor matches the stored contributor, and the corresponding company matches the stored company, and the identified relationship identifies the stored company is "restricted" relative to the stored contributor, excluding the corresponding identifier from the list of identifiers.

3. The method of claim 1 further comprising the step of:

if the corresponding contributor matches the stored contributor, and the corresponding company matches the stored company, and the identified relationship identifies the stored company is "restricted" relative to the stored contributor, and the remote terminal is associated with an "external" client of the corresponding contributor, excluding the corresponding identifier from the list of identifiers.

4. The method of claim 1 further comprising the step of:

if the corresponding contributor matches the stored contributor, and the corresponding company matches the stored company, and the identified relationship identifies the stored company is "restricted" relative to the stored contributor, and the remote terminal is associated with an "internal" client of the corresponding contributor, including the corresponding identifier from the list of identifiers.

5. The method of claim 1 further comprising the steps of:

if the corresponding contributor matches the stored contributor, and the corresponding company matches the stored company, determining whether to transmit to the remote terminal access data indicating that the corresponding document is inaccessible by the remote terminal as a function of the identified relationship.

6. The method of claim 5 wherein the determining step further comprising the step of:

if the identified relationship identifies that the stored company is not "restricted" and is "under review" relative to the stored contributor, and the remote terminal is associated with an "external" client of the corresponding contributor, transmitting the access data to the remote terminal.

7. A method for providing a list of document headlines corresponding to a plurality of electronic documents, the documents being stored in a central repository, each of the documents being associated with a corresponding contributor, a corresponding company, and a corresponding document headline, the method comprising the steps of:

electronically receiving from a remote computer a request for a list of document headlines;

selecting a subset of the documents in accordance with the request;

for each of the documents in the subset,

i) comparing the corresponding contributor and the corresponding company with stored data, the stored data identifying a stored contributor, a stored company, and an identified relationship between the stored contributor and stored company;

ii) if the corresponding contributor matches the stored contributor, and the corresponding company matches the stored company, determining whether to exclude the corresponding document headline from the list of document headlines as a function of the identified relationship; and

transmitting the list of document headlines to the remote computer.

8. The method of claim 7 further comprising the step of:

if the corresponding contributor matches the stored contributor, and the corresponding company matches the stored company, and the identified relationship identifies the stored company is "restricted" relative to the stored contributor, excluding the corresponding document headline from the list of headlines.

9. A system for providing a list of document headlines corresponding to a plurality of electronic documents, the documents being stored in a central repository, each of the documents being associated with a corresponding contributor, a corresponding company, and a corresponding document headline, the system comprising:

a server selectively coupled to a remote computer; and

a memory device coupled to the server, the memory device storing a contributor identifier associated with a contributor and a company identifier associated with a company, the database further, the database further storing relationship information identifying a relationship between the contributor and the company;

wherein the server receives from the remote computer a request for a list of document headlines and selects documents in accordance with the request, and for each of the documents in the subset, the server

i) compares the corresponding contributor and the corresponding company with stored data, the stored data identifying a stored contributor, a stored company, and an identified relationship between the stored contributor and stored company;

ii) if the corresponding contributor matches the stored contributor, and the corresponding company matches the stored company, the server determines whether to exclude the corresponding document headline from the list of document headlines as a function of the identified relationship,

and wherein the server transmits the list of document headlines to the remote computer.