Patent ID: 7676455

Claim:
A computerized method for maintaining information about individuals and/or organizations in databases, comprising: acquiring in electronic form a source document describing one or more events involving one or more individuals and/or organizations; at least one computer identifying in the electronic source document terms, including terms comprising a proper name, corresponding to respective terms in one or more preconfigured lists of terms, of which one or more of the preconfigured lists comprises terms including at least one proper name; the at least one computer tagging identified terms in the electronic source document; for each tagged term including a proper name, the at least one computer searching one or more databases for records that may represent individuals and/or organizations that carry that proper name or a similar one and retrieving one or more of such records; the at least one computer identifying one or more events described in the electronic source document by applying one or more rules to identify relationships involving terms in the electronic source document; for each of the one or more events identified in the electronic source document: the at least one computer presenting the electronic source document, with at least one term and the event contrasted, on an electronic display device; the at least one computer accepting user input through at least one computer input device to accept or to reject the identification of the contrasted event; and if the contrasted event is accepted, the at least one computer creating a tentative database transaction to record the event including terms of the identified relationships; the at least one computer accepting additional user input through the at least one computer input device directing that the tentative database transactions be committed to one or more databases; in response to the additional user input through the at least one computer input device, the at least one computer altering records contained in one or more databases to reflect the one or more events accepted by the user; and storing the electronic source document in a memory device for possible later retrieval.