Patent ID: 8600794

Claim:
A method, comprising: (a) receiving a request, at a server, from a requestor to participate in a meeting with one or more of a specified plurality of participants about a selected matter, the requestor being a person; (b) determining, based on a comparison to one or more other scheduled meetings, that a meeting is currently scheduled for the one or more of the specified plurality of participants and that a currently scheduled meeting is for the selected matter based on one or more of a common subject, agenda item, or attachment, wherein the comparison is based on a structured query of a subscriber database using, in one or more search fields, a subset of meeting information received in the request, the subset of meeting information being defined in a set of rules that define what degree of similarity is needed between the selected matter and the one or more other scheduled meetings; and (c) before performing a meeting merger step, performing, by the server, one or more of the following steps: (c1) notifying the requestor of at least one of the existence and details of the currently scheduled meeting, wherein notification of the requestor of the at least one of the existence and details depends on one or more of (i) an authority level of the requestor, wherein an authentication procedure is executed in which the requestor is asked to provide a password before the requestor is notified of the at least one of the existence and details of the currently scheduled meeting, and (ii) a stipulated level of restriction by a meeting organizer; and (c2) forwarding a meeting merger invitation to the requestor to merge the requested meeting with the currently scheduled meeting, wherein the invitation is a graphical user interface presented to the requestor which includes a participant field, a scheduled at field, a location field, subject matter of matching meeting information, other information regarding the matching meeting information and user selectable icons for approving or rejecting the meeting merger invitation; (d) receiving, from the requestor and the one or more of the plurality of participants, indications approving a meeting merger between the requested meeting and the currently scheduled meeting; and (e) merging, by the server, based on the approving indications, the requested meeting and the currently scheduled meeting resulting in a merged meeting.