Patent ID: 7533808

Claim:
A computerized method for using a shared computer network to determine whether multiple parties may have a common interest in the same subject, without disclosing any private identification information concerning a specific subject to a party not already in possession of that private information, comprising: collecting from one party an “identity code,” which is established by at least one pre-agreed rule of encoding alpha-numerical characters selected from only a portion of the identification information known to that one party concerning a subject of possible common interest to other parties, in which said identity code cannot be used to recover said identification information; reporting said identity code to the shared computer network for storage in a networked database together with the contact information of the reporting party; using a processor to compare said identity code with other identity codes from other parties that have been reported and stored in the networked database; and informing all parties, which have reported the same identity code, of the contact information of the other reporting parties so that these reporting parties can contact one another for further cooperation regarding the subject of possible common interest.