Patent ID: 7020869

Claim:
A computer program product, tangibly stored on a computer-readable medium, for interacting with a user to define business rules in a declarative manner, comprising instructions operable to cause a computer coupled to a display device to: display a rule set as an editable list of conditions and an editable list of actions, the conditions and actions being linked to each other by the combination of an editable list of if-values and an editable list of then-values, wherein if-values and then-values are explicitly linked to each other, conditions and if-values are explicitly linked to each other, and then-values and actions are explicitly linked to each other in the displayed lists; receive from a user inputs editing one or more of the editable lists; display the editable lists in a matrix structure of four quadrants, wherein an editable list of condition terms and an editable list of action terms are displayed in adjacent quadrants, and the editable list of if-values and the editable list of then-values are displayed in adjacent quadrants; and use adjacency of if-values and then-values to represent a conditional rule implementation, where when the specified conditions are true then the corresponding actions are executed.