Patent ID: 7047244

Claim:
A method of determining a connection between a source party and a target party comprising: constructing a host database, said host database including a plurality of records, each record including a number of data fields, each of said data fields including identification information of a party; constructing a client database, said client database including a plurality of records, each record including a number of data fields, each of said data fields including identification information of a party; receiving identification information of a source party and a target party; identifying a record in said client database including identification information of said source party; identifying a record in said host database including identification information of said target party; searching said data fields in said records of at least one of said client database and said host database to locate identification information commonalities between said source party record and at least one intermediate party record; searching said data fields in said records of at least one of said client database and said host database to locate identification information commonalities between said at least one intermediate party record and said target party record; and upon locating at least one identification information commonality between said at least one intermediate party record and said target party record, generating a list including said at least one intermediate party record.