Patent ID: 7653653

Claim:
A computer-implemented list management system for managing a list of a plurality of elements, the list comprising elements of a plurality of element types, each element having at least one property associated with a property name, a property type, and a value, wherein the list management system, upon receiving instructions to accept an element of a new element type not already included in the list of elements: determines one or more properties of the new element type, each of the one or more properties of the new element type including a property name and a property type; determines whether the one or more property names of the new element type are already included in the list; for each of the one or more properties of the new element type having a property name not already included in the list, adds the property to the list, wherein when the property is added to the list, the property is also added as a new property for each of the plurality of elements of the list; for each of the one or more properties of the new element type having a property name already included in a corresponding property of an existing element of the list, determines whether the property type for such property of the new element type matches the property type associated with the corresponding existing element of the list, and, if not, adds such property of the new element type to the list, including added such property as a new property for each of the plurality of elements of the list; adds at least one property of existing elements of the list as a new property for the new element type; and displays the list including at least some of the plurality of elements with at least some of the properties of the list available to each element in the list.