Networked personal contact manager

• US 6,269,369 B1
• Filed: 11/02/1997
• Issued: 07/31/2001
• Est. Priority Date: 11/02/1997
• Status: Expired due to Term

• Current Assignee: Amazon.com Holdings LLC (Amazon.com, Inc.)
• Original Assignee: Amazon.com Holdings LLC (Amazon.com, Inc.)
• Inventors: Robertson, Brian D.
• Primary Examiner(s): Dinh, Dung C.
• Assistant Examiner(s): Le, Hieu C.
• Application Number:
  US08/962,997
• Time in Patent Office: 1,367 Days
• Field of Search: 709/300, 709/201, 709/202, 709/203, 709/217, 709/218, 709/219, 707/1, 707/104, 707/501, 707/513, 707/10, 707/201, 345/327, 345/331
• US Class Current: 1/1
• CPC Class Codes: G06Q 10/02 Reservations, e.g. for tickets, services or events
• CPC Class Codes: G06Q 10/025 Coordination of plural reservations, e.g. plural trip segments, transportation combined with accommodation
• CPC Class Codes: G06Q 10/063 Operations research, analysis or management
• CPC Class Codes: G06Q 10/0631 Resource planning, allocation, distributing or scheduling for enterprises or organisations
• CPC Class Codes: G06Q 10/10 Office automation; Time management
• CPC Class Codes: G06Q 10/1093 Calendar-based scheduling for persons or groups
• CPC Class Codes: G06Q 10/1095 Meeting or appointment
• CPC Class Codes: G06Q 50/01 Social networking
• CPC Class Codes: G08B 2001/085 Partner search devices
• CPC Class Codes: H04L 61/00 Network arrangements, protocols or services for addressing or naming
• CPC Class Codes: H04L 63/0227 Filtering policies mail message filtering H04L51/212
• CPC Class Codes: H04L 63/0263 Rule management
• CPC Class Codes: H04L 63/102 Entity profiles
• CPC Class Codes: H04L 67/306 User profiles
• CPC Class Codes: H04L 67/54 Presence management, e.g. monitoring or registration for receipt of user log-on information, or the connection status of the users
• CPC Class Codes: H04L 69/16 Implementation or adaptation of Internet protocol [IP], of transmission control protocol [TCP] or of user datagram protocol [UDP]
• CPC Class Codes: H04L 69/329 in the application layer [OSI layer 7]
• CPC Class Codes: H04L 9/40 Network security protocols
• CPC Class Codes: H04M 3/42008 Systems for anonymous communication between parties, e.g. by use of disposal contact identifiers
• CPC Class Codes: Y10S 707/99931 Database or file accessing
• CPC Class Codes: Y10S 707/99945 : Object-oriented database structure processing
• CPC Class Codes: Y10S 707/99952 : Coherency, e.g. same view to multiple users

Abstract

A network-computer-based personal contact manager system is disclosed wherein users of networked clients maintain and update a set of user information which is stored in a relational database on a networked server. The personal contact manager system allows each user to specify on an individual basis which of their contacts are permitted to access respective datums of their user information. In some cases, and assuming permission is granted, the system will issue notifications (e.g., by e-mail) to a user'"'"'s contacts when the user changes his information or when a preset event, such as a birthday, as defined by the user, is to occur. The system also allows users to find contacts based on common group affiliations and notifies users when there are coincidences in their data (e.g., travel plans, astrological compatibility). The personal contact manager system supports the retrieval of information on the contacts of contacts, assuming such as permission has been granted by the contacts and their contacts, and can also be used to synchronize the server database with a PIM database of the user and any contacts of the user whoe have the appropriate permissions.

Claims

1. A networked contact management system, comprising:

a database which contains personal records of multiple users, each record including multiple fields, including fields for storing personal contact information; and

contact manager software which provides restricted access to the database through an interface in which (1) users select other users from the database to include in their own, respective virtual personal address books without the need to enter information for such users, (2) if a first user selects a second user to include in the first user'"'"'s virtual personal address book, the second user is provided an option to specify the types of information of the second user'"'"'s personal record to be viewable by the first user, (3) users directly update their own respective personal records within the database, and (4) the personal records stored within the database are at least partially viewable as virtual address book entries, so that updates made by users to their own respective personal records are reflected automatically within the virtual personal address books of other users without the need to propagate or separately apply the updates to individual address books.

2. The networked contact management system as in claim 1, wherein the interface further provides the second user an option to grant permission to the first user to be notified of at least one type of occasion.

3. The networked contact management system as in claim 2, wherein the at least one type of occasion includes at least one of the following:

(a) a birthday of the second user, (b) an anniversary of the second user, and (c) a correspondence in schedules of the first and second users.

4. The networked contact management system as in claim 1, wherein the database contains information about a plurality of affinity groups, and the contact manager software implements functions for (a) allowing the multiple users to select and join individual affinity groups, (b) notifying a new member of an affinity group of existing members of the affinity group, and (c) presenting the new member an option to select individual members of the affinity group to add to the new member'"'"'s personal address book.

5. The networked contact management system as in claim 4, wherein the contact manager software automatically notifies existing members of the affinity group of new members.

6. The networked contact management system as in claim 1, wherein the contact manager software receives and stores information about travel plans of individual users, and uses the information about travel plans to detect that a user and a contact of the user will be in the same location at the same time.

7. The networked contact management system as in claim 1, wherein the contact manager software automatically notifies the first user when the second user modifies a datum of the second user'"'"'s personal record that the first user is permitted to view.

8. The networked contact management system as in claim 1, further comprising synchronization software which synchronizes a personal digital assistant (PDA) device with a user'"'"'s virtual personal address book over a computer network.

9. A networked personal contact management system, comprising:

a database which contains personal data records of a plurality of users, at least some of the data records including contact information of respective users; and

a server system which provides restricted access to the database through an interface that provides functions for each user to at least (a) directly modify the user'"'"'s own repective personal data record within the database, (b) select other users from the database to add to a virtual personal address book of the user, and (c) specify, on a user-by-user basis, permissions for other users to view the personal data record of the user through virtual virtual personal address books of such other users;

wherein users directly view the data records of other users through the virtual address books according to said permissions, so that updates by users to their own respective personal records are reflected automatically within the virtual personal address books of other users.

10. The networked personal contact management system as in claim 9, wherein the interface allows each user to grant said permissions separately for each of a plurality of data types.

11. The networked personal contact management system as in claim 9, wherein the server system notifies the user of at least one of the following types of occasions associated with a contact of the user:

(a) a birthday of the contact, (b) an anniversary of the contact, and (c) a correspondence in schedules of the user and the contact.

12. The networked personal contact management system as in claim 9, wherein the database contains information about a plurality of affinity groups, and the server system implements functions for (a) allowing the plurality of users to select and join individual affinity groups, (b) notifying a new member of an affinity group of existing members of the affinity group, and (c) presenting the new member an option to select individual members of the affinity group to add to the new member'"'"'s virtual personal address book.

13. The networked personal contact management system as in claim 12, wherein the server system automatically notifies existing members of the affinity group of new members.

14. The networked personal contact management system as in claim 9, wherein the server system receives and stores information about travel plans of individual users, and uses the travel plans to detect that the user and a contact of the user will cross paths.

15. The networked personal contact management system as in claim 9, wherein the server system automatically notifies the user when contacts recorded within the user'"'"'s virtual personal address book modify their respective contact information displayed within the virtual personal address book.

16. The networked personal contact management system as in claim 9, further comprising synchronization software which sychronizes a personal digital assistant (PDA) device with a user'"'"'s virtual personal address book over a computer network.