Method for maintaining people and organization information

• US 7,054,886 B2
• Filed: 07/27/2001
• Issued: 05/30/2006
• Est. Priority Date: 07/31/2000
• Status: Expired due to Term

• Current Assignee: Zoom Information, Inc. (ZoomInfo Technologies, Inc.)
• Original Assignee: Zoom Information, Inc. (ZoomInfo Technologies, Inc.)
• Inventors: Stern, Jonathan, Rothman-Shore, Jeremy W., Karadimitriou, Kosmas, Decary, Michel
• Primary Examiner(s): Corrielus, Jean M.
• Assistant Examiner(s): HWANG, JOON H
• Application Number:
  US09/917,200
• Publication Number:
  US 20020059251A1
• Time in Patent Office: 1,768 Days
• Field of Search: 707 1- 10, 707200-206, 707100-1041, 705/1, 705/500, 709201-203
• US Class Current: 1/1
• CPC Class Codes: G06F 16/951 Indexing; Web crawling techniques
• CPC Class Codes: G06F 16/9535 Search customisation based on user profiles and personalisation
• CPC Class Codes: G06F 16/9538 Presentation of query results
• CPC Class Codes: Y10S 707/959 Network
• CPC Class Codes: Y10S 707/99933 Query processing, i.e. searching
• CPC Class Codes: Y10S 707/99935 Query augmenting and refining, e.g. inexact access
• CPC Class Codes: Y10S 707/99936 Pattern matching access
• CPC Class Codes: Y10S 707/99937 Sorting
• CPC Class Codes: Y10S 707/99943 Generating database or data structure, e.g. via user interface
• CPC Class Codes: Y10S 707/99945 Object-oriented database structure processing
• CPC Class Codes: Y10S 707/99948 Application of database or data structure, e.g. distributed, multimedia, or image

Abstract

A database is formed and maintained by computer-automated means extracting information from a global computer network. The database contains information about people and organizations. The present invention method provides continual updates to the information stored in the database by the people named in the database and by the automated means. Integrity of the automatically extracted information is maintained. A link from the invention database to a third party data system provides updates in the information in the database to be communicated to the third party data system for updating and maintaining data of the third party data system. The database may serve as an email communication clearinghouse where senders do not need to know the email address of a person named in the database but rather leaves messages through that person'"'"'s record in the database. Targeted advertising to a named person is provided during his accessing the database. The targeted advertising is based on information about the named person as stored in the database. The database may be queried by any combination of person name, job title, organization name and field of business of the organization. The invention method provides clipping service which monitors changes in the information stored in the database and notifies interested parties of detected changes.

Claims

1. A method of providing a data store of people information, comprising the steps of:

using automated means, extracting from a global computer network unstructured information about individual people, and storing the extracted information in a database, the database including for each person a respective record holding at least name of a person and name of a respective current employer; and

enabling people named in the database to access respective records, said enabling access being in a manner that enables each respective person to edit data in each respective person'"'"'s record of the database but maintains integrity of the automatically extracted information such that both user-edited data and automatically extracted information reside simultaneously in the database, the user-edited data being maintained and continually updated by a person named in the database and automatically extracted information being maintained by the automated means and not the person such that integrity of the automatically extracted and stored information is maintained, the automated means replacing old extracted data but not user-edited data with newly extracted data, portions of the user-edited data being same information but a different version of the automatically extracted information.

2. A method as claimed in claim 1 further comprising the steps of:

linking from a desired record in the database to a third party data system, said linking providing a communication link;

updating data in the desired record linked to the third party data system; and

using the communication link, notifying the third party data system of the updated data in the desired record such that the third party data system employs the updated data in maintaining data of the third party data system.

3. A method as claimed in claim 1 further comprising the step of utilizing the database as an e-mail communication system to each person named in the database, the e-mail communication system enabling a sender to send a message to a named person based on name of a person absent the sender having an email address for the named person.

4. A method as claimed in claim 1 further comprising the step of targeted advertising to a named person during access of his record, the targeted advertising being based on information stored in a record.

5. A method as claimed in claim 1 wherein for each person, the respective record further holds job title of the person;

and

further comprising the step of querying the data base by name and job title.

6. A method as claimed in claim 1 further comprising the steps of:

using the automated means, extracting from a global computer network, information about organizations, and storing the extracted organization information in the database, the database including for each organization, name of an organization and field of business of the organization; and

querying the database by organization name and field.

7. A method as claimed in claim 6 further comprising:

providing computer means for monitoring changes in information about desired people or organizations; and

in response to said monitoring detecting a change, notifying an interested party of said detected change.

8. A method for e-mail communication comprising the steps of:

providing a database storing information regarding people, said providing including using crawler means, automatically extracting unstructured information regarding people and/or organizations from sites on a global computer network and storing the extracted information in the database, such that the database is formed by automated means;

coupling an e-mail clearinghouse system to the database, in a manner that enables each person named in the database to receive e-mail in a respective e-mail box, in a manner free of the database indicating email addresses of people named in the database to email message senders; and

enabling individuals to annotate, including updating, information stored in the database in a manner that maintains integrity of the information as extracted, such that both user-edited data and automatically extracted information reside simultaneously in the database, the user-edited data being maintained by a respective individual and the automatically extracted information being maintained by the automated means and not the respective individual and thus maintaining integrity, the automated means replacing old extracted data but not user-edited data with newly extracted data, portions of the user-edited data being same information but a different version of the automatically extracted information.

9. A method as claimed in claim 8 wherein the database stores extracted information in respective records, a different record for each different person and organization, and further comprising the steps of:

linking from a desired record in the database to a third party data system, said linking providing a communication link;

updating data in the desired record linked to the third party data system; and

using the communication link, notifying the third party data system of the updated data in the desired record such that the third party data system employs the updated data in maintaining data of the third party data system.

10. A method as claimed in claim 9 wherein the step of updating is computer automated and regularly occurring.

11. A method as claimed in claim 8 further comprising:

providing computer means for monitoring changes in information about desired people or organizations, and

in response to said monitoring detecting a change, notifying a predetermined party of said detected change.

12. A method as claimed in claim 8 further comprising the steps of:

enabling access to the database by people named in the extracted information stored in the database; and

targeting advertising to a person named in the database during his accessing the database, the targeted advertising being based on the extracted information stored in the database.

13. A method for obtaining information about people or organizations comprising the computer-implemented steps of:

extracting from a global computer network unstructured information about individual people and organizations;

storing the extracted information in a database;

monitoring the global computer network for changes in information about desired people or organizations with respect to the extracted information stored in the database; and

in response to said monitoring (i) detecting a change in information about at least one person, (ii) notifying an interested party of said detected change and (iii) from the global computer network as monitored, corresponding new information about the desired people or organizations to the extracted information stored in the database, (iv) replacing old extracted information but not user-edited data stored in the database with the new information, wherein the interested party includes the at least one person and new information about the at least one person is corresponded to extracted information about the at least one person stored in the database.

14. A method as claimed in claim 13 further comprising the steps of:

linking from certain information stored in the database to a third party data system, said linking providing a communication link;

updating the certain information in the database; and

using the communication link, notifying the third party data system of the updated information such that the third party data system employs the updated information in maintaining data of the third party data system.

15. A method as claimed in claim 13 further comprising the step of utilizing the database as an email communication system to each person named in the information stored in the database, the email communication system enabling a sender to send a message to a named person based on name of a person absent the sender having an email address for the named person.

16. A method as claimed in claim 13 further comprising the steps of:

enabling people named in the information stored in the database to access the database; and

advertising to a named person during his accessing the database, the advertising being targeted based on information stored in the database.

17. A method as claimed in claim 13 wherein the step of storing the extracted information includes for each person, storing indications of name and job title of a person, and for each organization, storing indications of organization name and field of business of the organization;

and

further comprising the step of querying the database by any combination of person name, job title, organization name and field of business.