Interface Software, Inc.

Reed Elsevier Inc.

Robert M Nagy

Barry Solomon

Daniel H Morgan

Karen L Enright

A relationship management system uses a database to store contact information related to a number of contacts and to store a number of folders, each of which reference one or more of the contacts within the database. The relationship management system also stores a set of contact-user pairs defining known relationships between users of the relationship management system and the contacts stored in the database. For each contact-user pair, an opt-in field indicating if the contact-user relationship is to be available for use in determining which users know a specified user is stored. If the opt-in flag is set, information pertaining to the nature of the relationship between the user and the contact, such as a relationship description, an indication of the type or strength of the relationship, etc. is also stored. At any desired time, a user may implement a user-contact reference routine to determine which users know a specified contact. The user-contact reference routine accesses the contact-user pairs within the database to determine the users which are associated with a contact-user pair that references the specified contact and that has an opt-in flag set to enable the contact-user relationship to be discovered. The user-contact reference routine then lists all of the determined users and may display the relationship information stored for each discovered contact-user pair.

Relationship management system that provides an indication of users having a relationship with a specified contact

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.

Relationship management system determining contact pathways in a contact relational database

A relationship management system uses a database to store contact information related to a number of contacts and uses a number of folders, each of which reference one or more of the contacts within the database, to display contact information. Each of the contact information records stored within the database has an associated contact information type and a visibility attribute that defines the folders through which the associated contact information record is viewable. If the visibility attribute is set to a global value, the contact information record may be viewed by all folders. If the visibility attribute is set to a private value, the contact information record may be viewed only by specified folders. When a display routine of the relationship management system displays folders on a display device, a contact information display field is used to display each of the contact information records of a particular type that are defined as being either globally viewable or as being privately viewable through the folder being displayed.

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Aurora, IL, United States of America

Robert M Nagy