Relationship collaboration system

• US 7,849,103 B2
• Filed: 09/10/2004
• Issued: 12/07/2010
• Est. Priority Date: 09/10/2003
• Status: Active Grant

• Current Assignee: Thomson Reuters Enterprise Centre GmbH (The Woodbridge Co. Ltd.)
• Original Assignee: West Services
• Inventors: Yoon, Michael, Hyatt, Geoffrey, Swan, Wilbur
• Primary Examiner(s): Lee; Wilson
• Assistant Examiner(s): Hwa; Shyue Jiunn
• Application Number:
  US10/938,406
• Publication Number:
  US 20050065980A1
• Time in Patent Office: 2,279 Days
• Field of Search: 707/1, 707/104, 707/229, 709/223, 717/174
• US Class Current: 707/792
• CPC Class Codes: G06F 16/22 Indexing; Data structures therefor; Storage structures
• CPC Class Codes: G06F 16/245 Query processing
• CPC Class Codes: G06F 16/288 Entity relationship models
• CPC Class Codes: G06F 16/901 Indexing; Data structures therefor; Storage structures for retrieval from the web G06F16/951
• CPC Class Codes: G06F 16/951 Indexing; Web crawling techniques
• CPC Class Codes: G06F 21/6227 where protection concerns the structure of data, e.g. records, types, queries
• CPC Class Codes: G06F 21/6254 by anonymising data, e.g. decorrelating personal data from the owner's identification
• CPC Class Codes: H04L 43/0876 Network utilisation, e.g. volume of load or congestion level
• CPC Class Codes: H04L 51/42 Mailbox-related aspects, e.g. synchronisation of mailboxes
• CPC Class Codes: H04L 67/535 Tracking the activity of the user network monitoring arrangements H04L43/00; recording of computer activity G06F11/34
• CPC Class Codes: Y10S 707/955 Object-oriented

Abstract

A computer implemented method of processing data containing information about relationships between contacts and a community of contact owners, includes: collecting data having contact information, contact owner information and one or more values related to the strength of a relationship between the contact and the contact owner; evaluating the strength of the relationship based on the one or more values; and storing the collected data and evaluated strength in a computer database.

Claims

1. A computer implemented method comprising:

collecting data from an electronic mail system including at least first and second electronic address books, the first address book associated with a first contact owner and including a first plurality of contacts and corresponding contact information and the second address book associated with a second contact owner and including a second plurality of contacts and corresponding contact information, the collected data including one or more first values related to strength of a relationship between the first contact owner and each of the first plurality of contacts and including one or more second values related to a strength of relationship between the second contact owner and each of the second plurality of contacts, wherein at least one of the first values and one of the second values is a quantity regarding email communications between respective contact and contact owner;

determining first and second strength scores respectively representative of strength of the relationship between the first owner and one of the first plurality of contacts and of strength of the relationship between the second contact owner and one of the second plurality of contacts, with the first and second scores based on the quantity regarding email communications, wherein the step of determining first and second strength scores includes monitoring email traffic in which the first and second contact owners communicate with contacts within organizations, analyzing contact information in the email traffic between the organizations and the first and second contact owners, and incorporating such analysis into the first and second strength scores;

storing the collected data and the first and second strength scores in a computer database;

extracting from the one or more values one or more of how long the contact has been stored, how frequently it has been accessed, how recently it has been accessed or modified, whether the contact owner appears to have an identifiable association with the contact or entity, the type of association such as duration, frequency, recency or role, the amount and type of contact data, the pattern and frequency and recency of communication;

computing on a substantially continuous scale the strength of the relationship relative to other relationships in the collected data;

extracting unique identifiers from the collected data;

matching the unique identifiers to a taxonomy of valid entities; and

indexing the collected data to unique identifiers corresponding to valid entities.

2. The method of claim 1, further comprising:

extracting information from the collected data by which a valid entity can be distinguished from an invalid entity; and

organizing the extracted information into a set of rules defining a taxonomy which separates valid and invalid entities.

3. The method of claim 2, further comprising:

updating the taxonomy to include at least a portion of additional information extracted from the collected data.

4. The method of claim 3, further comprising;

filtering the collected data and evaluated strength to exclude from the computer database collected data corresponding to insufficient strength.

5. The method of claim 1, wherein extracting unique identifiers further comprises:

recognizing an identifier associated with an entity by a convention of computer networking.

6. The method of claim 5, wherein extracting unique identifiers further comprises:

recognizing domain names or email addresses as unique identifiers of entities.

7. The method of claim 1, further comprising:

receiving a query for contacts having desired characteristics; and

returning a list of contact owners corresponding to relationships with contacts or entities having the desired characteristics, wherein the list lists the first and second contact owners.

8. The method of claim 7, further comprising:

ordering at least a portion of the returned list of contact owners according to the first and second strength scores.

9. The method of claim 7, wherein the first and second contact owners and their contacts having the desired characteristics satisfy a privacy policy including one or more policies selected from a group including:

a global policy, a group policy, an individual contact owner policy, and an individual contact policy.

10. The method of claim 9, the group further including an opt-out privacy policy permitting at least the first contact owner to respectively preclude information regarding one or more of the first contacts from being listed in response to the received query.

11. The method of claim 10, the opt-out privacy policy permitting at least the first contact owner to totally opt out, thereby precluding all information regarding all of the first contacts from being listed in response to the received query.

12. The method of claim 7, wherein the electronic mail system comprises a third electronic address book associated with a first contact owner and including a third plurality of contacts and corresponding contact information;

and wherein the method further comprises;

Rendering the third contact owner anonymous in the returned list; and

providing access to anonymous communication with the anonymous contact owner.

13. The method of claim 7, further comprising:

providing a communication method for contacting a contact owner on the returned list.

14. A system for processing data containing information about relationships between contacts or entities and a community of contact owners, comprising:

a data collecting module which collects data including contact information, contact owner information and one or more values related to strength of a relationship between the contact and the contact owner;

wherein at least one of the values related to strength of a relationship is a quantity regarding email communications between respective contact and contact owner;

a processor executing a process to evaluate the strength of the relationship based on the one or more values, including email communication values;

a memory storing the collected data and evaluated strength in a computer database;

a module which extracts from the one or more values one or more of how long the contact has been stored, how frequently it has been accessed, how recently it has been accessed or modified, whether the contact owner appears to have an identifiable association with the contact or entity, the type of association such as duration, frequency, recency or role, the amount and type of contact data, the pattern and frequency and recency of communication;

a module which monitors email traffic in which the first and second contact owners communicate with contacts within organizations;

a module which analyzes contact information in the email traffic between the organizations and the first and second contact owners;

a module which computes on a substantially continuous scale the strength of the relationship relative to other relationships in the collected data wherein the module which computes the strength of relationship incorporates into the first and second strength scores analysis from the module which analyzes contact information in the email traffic;

a module which extracts unique identifiers from the collected data;

a module which matches the unique identifiers to a taxonomy of valid entities; and

a module which indexes the collected data to unique identifiers corresponding to valid entities.

15. The system of claim 14, further comprising:

a module which extracts information from the collected data by which a valid entity can be distinguished from an invalid entity; and

a module which organizes the extracted information into a set of rules defining a taxonomy which separates valid and invalid entities.

16. The system of claim 15, further comprising:

a module which updates the taxonomy to include at least a portion of additional information extracted from the collected data.

17. The system of claim 16, further comprising;

a module which filters the collected data and evaluated strength to exclude from the computer database collected data corresponding to insufficient strength.

18. The system of claim 14, wherein the module which extracts unique identifiers further comprises:

a sub-module which recognizes an identifier associated with an entity by a convention of computer networking.

19. The system of claim 18, wherein the module which extracts unique identifiers further comprises:

a sub-module which recognizes domain names or email addresses as unique identifiers of entities.

20. The system of claim 14, further comprising:

a user interface which receives a query for contacts having desired characteristics; and

a user interface which returns a list of contact owners corresponding to relationships with contacts or entities having the desired characteristics.

21. The system of claim 20, further comprising:

a module which orders the returned list of contact owners according to the evaluated strength of relationships to those contacts or entities having the desired characteristics.

22. The system of claim 20, further comprising:

a module which identifies contact owners corresponding to contacts having the desired characteristics only when the contact owner and contact also meet a privacy policy including one or more policies selected from a list including;

a global policy, a group policy, an individual contact owner policy, and an individual contact policy.