Relationship management system determining contact pathways in a contact relational database

• US 7,325,012 B2
• Filed: 09/30/2003
• Issued: 01/29/2008
• Est. Priority Date: 12/06/1999
• Status: Expired due to Fees

• Current Assignee: RELX Inc. (RELX PLC)
• Original Assignee: Interface Software, Inc. (RELX PLC)
• Inventors: Nagy, Robert M.
• Primary Examiner(s): Gaffin; Jeffrey
• Assistant Examiner(s): Veillard; Jacques
• Application Number:
  US10/677,113
• Publication Number:
  US 20040128322A1
• Time in Patent Office: 1,582 Days
• Field of Search: 707/1, 707/9, 707/10, 707/100, 707/102, 707/104.1, 707/5, 709/201, 709/223, 709/224, 709/226, 705/22, 705/26
• US Class Current: 1/1
• CPC Class Codes: G06Q 10/10 Office automation; Time management
• CPC Class Codes: G06Q 10/109 Time management, e.g. calendars, reminders, meetings or time accounting
• CPC Class Codes: Y10S 707/99939 Privileged access
• 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 relationship management system using a database that stores contact information defining a set of contact individuals associated with each of the users of the database. An input routine stored on a computer readable medium is executed on a processor to accept an input of a target individual from a starting person who is a user of the system. A contact information access routine is executed on the processor to access contact information in the form of user-contact pairs stored in the database that are associated with the starting person and the target individual. A relationship connection routine is executed on the processor to utilize the user-contact pairs accessed by the contact information access routine and determine relationship connections that may link the starting person and the target individual. A display routine is executed to display to the starting person an indication of the potential relationship connections.

Claims

1. A relationship management system adapted to be used with a processor, a database and a display device, comprising:

a computer readable medium;

a database storage routine stored on the computer readable medium and adapted to store, within the database, contact information for one or more contacts and one or more user-contact pairs, wherein each user-contact pair includes a contact indication that indicates one of the contacts and a user indication that indicates one of the users;

a reference routine stored on the computer readable medium and adapted to be executed on the processor to access the database to determine whether a specified individual knows a specified contact, wherein the reference routine searches the user-contact pairs for the specified contact to locate at least one user-contact pair associated with the specified contact and wherein the reference routine determines one or more individuals that know the specified contact from the user-contact pairs; and

a display routine stored on the computer readable medium and adapted to be executed on the processor to display, on the display device, an indication of whether the specified individual knows the specified contact.

2. The relationship management system of claim 1, wherein the database stores, for each of the user-contact pairs, a relationship field indicating relationship information pertaining to the relationship between the contact indicated by the contact indication and the user indicated by the user indication and wherein the display routine displays the relationship information for one or more of the user-contact pairs in which the contact indication indicates the specified contact.

3. The relationship management system of claim 2, wherein the relationship field stores a textual string input by a user to define the nature of a relationship between one of the users and one of the contacts and wherein the database storage routine queries the textual string and stores the textual string in the relationship field within the database.

4. The relationship management system of claim 2, wherein the relationship field stores an indication of a type of relationship between one of the users and one of the contacts and wherein the database storage routine queries the type of relationship and stores the indication of the type of relationship in the relationship field within the database.

5. The relationship management system of claim 2, wherein the relationship field stores an indication of the strength of the relationship between one of the users and one of the contacts and wherein the database storage routine queries the indication of the strength of the relationship and stores the indication of the strength of the relationship in the relationship field within the database.

6. A relationship management system configured to be used with a processor, a display device and a database that stores contact information defining a set of contacts associated with each of a plurality of users of the database, comprising:

a computer readable medium;

an input routine stored on the computer readable medium and adapted to be executed on the processor to accept a designation of a target individual;

a contact information access routine stored on the computer readable medium and adapted to be executed on the processor to access the contact information in the form of user-contact pairs stored in the database;

a relationship determination routine stored on the computer readable medium and adapted to be executed on the processor to utilize the user-contact pairs accessed by the contact information access routine to determine at least one relationship that links relationships between an individual and the target individual; and

a display routine stored on the computer readable medium and configured to be executed on the processor to display, on the display device, an indication of the relationship.

7. The relationship management system according to claim 6, wherein the input routine is adapted to accept a designation of a starting person.

8. The relationship management system according to claim 7, wherein a first user-contact pair comprises the starting person and at least one of a contact individual associated with the starting person or one of the plurality of users.

9. The relationship management system according to claim 8, wherein a second user-contact pair comprises a target individual and one of the plurality of users having the target individual as a stored contact or having a potential relationship with one of the plurality of users of the database according to a predetermined criterion.

10. The relationship management system according to claim 9, wherein the predetermined criterion includes at least one of a common workplace affiliation between the one of the plurality of users and the target individual, a common educational affiliation between the one of the plurality of users and the target individual, and a common organizational affiliation between the one of the plurality of users and the target individual.

11. The relationship management system according to claim 6, wherein the relationship pathway determination routine is configured to examine a plurality of user-contact pairs, identify either a user or a contact individual common to two of the plurality of user-contact pairs and to link together user-contact pairs having identified common users or contact individuals.

12. The relationship management system according to claim 6, wherein the relationship pathway determination routine is further configured to determine a relationship pathway having a predetermined number of user-contact pairs that links the starting person to the target individual.

13. The relationship management system according to claim 6, further comprising a weighting routine stored on the computer readable medium and adapted to be executed on the processor to determine a relative strength of the at least one relationship pathway based on relationship strength information associated with the user-contact pairs within the relationship pathway.

14. The relationship management system according to claim 6, further comprising a prioritization routine stored on the computer readable medium and adapted to be executed on the processor to determine a priority rating for the determined relationship pathway based on predetermined priority criteria;

and

wherein the display routine is configured to display the determined priority rating of the determined relationship pathway.

15. The relationship management system according to claim 6, wherein the display routine is further configured to display relationship pathway information including at least one of common workplace affiliations between the target individual and a user of the database, common educational affiliations between the target individual and the user of the database, and common organizational affiliations between the target individual and the user of the database.

16. A relationship management system, comprising:

a database storing contact relationship information for a multiplicity of individuals;

at least one access terminal in communicative connection with the database, the at least one access terminal having a processor, a memory and a display device;

an access routine stored in the memory and configured to be executed on the processor to access the database;

a reference routine stored in the memory and configured to determine a list of individuals having commonalities with a target individual from the contact relationship information stored in the database; and

a relationship connection determination routine stored in the memory and configured to be executed on the processor to plot one or more relationship connections between a starting individual and the target individual through the individuals in the determined list so that the one or more relationship connections facilitate future communications between the starting individual and the target individual.

17. The relationship management system according to claim 16, wherein the one or more relationship connections between the starting individual and the target individual further include potential relationship connections between the starting individual and the target individual determined based on at least one commonality criterion.

18. The relationship management system according to claim 17, wherein the commonality criterion includes at least one of a common workplace affiliation between the individuals in the determined list and the target individual, a common educational affiliation between the individuals in the determined list and the target individual, and a common organizational affiliation between the individuals in the determined list and the target individual.

19. The relationship management system according to claim 17, wherein the relationship connections between the starting individual and the target individual comprise a degree of contact relationship and wherein the starting individual and the target individual are both contacts of one or more common intermediate users of the database.

20. The relationship management system according to claim 17, further comprising a weighting routine stored in the memory and configured to determine respective quantitative strengths in the determined relationship connections based on relationship strength information stored in the database.

21. The relationship management system according to claim 17, further comprising a weighting routine stored in the memory and configured to determine strengths of the determined relationship connections based on at least a predetermined criterion that includes at least one of common workplace affiliations between individuals in the determined list and the target individual, common educational affiliations between individuals in the determined list and the target individual, and common organizational affiliations between individuals in the determined list and the target individual.

22. The relationship management system according to claim 21, further comprising a prioritization routine stored in the memory and configured to determine a priority order of the relationship connections based on the determined strengths, and wherein the display routine is configured to display the contact relationship connections according to the determined priority order.

23. A relationship management database system comprising:

a database configured to store relationship information for a plurality of users;

at least one computer having access to at least a portion of the relationship information stored in the database and having a memory storing;

a search routine stored in the memory and configured to be executed by the computer at the request of a requesting user to search the relationship information stored in the database concerning a starting person and a target person;

a user-contact reference routine stored in the memory and configured to;

(a) determine a first set of user-contact pairs for the starting person, each of the first set of user-contact pairs for the starting person comprising the starting person as the user and one of a plurality of contacts known by the starting person and other users of the database as the contact; and

(b) determine a second set of user-contact pairs for the target person, each of the second set of user-contact pairs comprising the target person as the contact and users of the plurality of users who have the target person as a contact or have at least one shared commonality with the target person as the user;

a relationship pathway determination routine stored in the memory and configured to be executed by the computer to determine one or more relationship pathways between the starting person and the target person from among the first set of user-contact pairs and the second set of user-contact pairs so that the one or more relationship pathways facilitate future communications between the starting person and the target person.

24. The relationship management database system according to claim 23, wherein the relationship pathway determination routine is further configured to cause the search routine to retrieve additional user-contact pairs for determining further relationship pathways between the starting person and the target person having further degrees of separation that include common relationships or potential relationships determined among the additional user-contact pairs between contacts of the plurality of contacts known by the starting person and the users of the plurality of users who have the target person as a contact or have the at least one shared commonality with the target person.

25. The relationship management database according to claim 23 wherein the at least one shared commonality includes at least one of common workplace affiliations between a user of the plurality of users and the target person, common educational affiliations between the user of the plurality of users and the target person and common organizational affiliations between the user of the plurality of users and the target person.

26. The relationship management database system according to claim 23, wherein the memory further stores a weighting routine configured to determine strengths of the one or more relationship pathways through a predetermined process based on relationship strength information stored in the database.

27. The relationship management system according to claim 23, further comprising a prioritization routine stored in the memory and configured to determine a priority order of the common relationships based on predetermined priority criteria;

and

a display routine stored in the memory and configured to display the priority order of the common rclationships to the requesting user.

28. A method for managing relationships in a database comprising:

storing relationship information for a plurality of users in the database;

searching the relationship information stored in the database to determine a starting person and a target person;

determining a first set of user-contact pairs for the starting person, each of the first set of user-contact pairs for the starting person comprising the starting person as the user and one of a plurality of contacts known by the starting person and other users of the database as the contact;

determining a second set of user-contact pairs for the target person, each of the second set of user-contact pairs comprising the target person as the contact and users of the plurality of users having the target person as a contact or having at least one shared commonality with the target person as the user; and

determining one or more relationship pathways between the starting person and the target person from among the first set of user-contact pairs and the second set of user-contact pairs;

using the determined one or more relationship pathways in a communication from the starting person to the target person so that the one or more relationship pathways facilitate a future communication between the starting person and the target person.