Patent ID: 7483969

Claim:
A method of managing communication requests to a user on the basis of a relationship level between the user and a party requesting to communicate with the user, the method comprising: maintaining a plurality of relationship levels, each of the plurality of relationship levels having one or more associated presence rules that dictate the management of a communication request between two parties that are associated by the respective relationship level; storing an indication of a relationship level between the user and each of a plurality of other parties; and upon receipt of a request from a party to communicate with the user, determining if the user has a stored relationship level with the requesting party and: if the user has a stored relationship level with the requesting party, applying the one or more presence rules associated with the stored relationship level in order to manage the communication request; and if the user does not have a stored relationship level with the requesting party, inferring a relationship level between the user and the requesting party and applying the one or more presence rules associated with the inferred relationship level in order to manage the communication request.