Patent ID: 7379942

Claim:
An approval authority registration system which comprises terminals, a database, and a database management apparatus interconnected via a network, wherein one or more pieces of approval relation information, each of which indicates a relationship between an approval-authorized person and an approval object person who are both users of the approval authority registration system and indicates an effective period of the relationship, have been registered with the database, wherein the database management apparatus includes: a receiving unit configured to receive, from a user via a terminal, a registration request requesting registration of a new piece of approval relation information with the database; a first judging unit configured to judge whether the user who input the registration request matches either an approval-authorized person or an approval object person specified in the requested piece of approval relation information; a second judging unit configured to, only when the first judging unit has judged that the user matches neither the specified approval-authorized person nor the specified approval object person, judge whether there is a no-approval-authorized-person period between an effective period indicated by the new piece of approval relation information and an effective period indicated by a piece of approval relation information which is one of the one or more pieces of approval relation information having been registered with the database and indicates a same approval object person as the new piece of approval relation information; and a registration unit configured to register the new piece of approval relation information with the database when the second judging unit has judged that there is no no-approval-authorized-person period, and provide a warning that there is the no-approval-authorized-person period and prevent the new piece of approval relation information from being registered with the database when the second judging unit has judged that there is the no-approval-authorized-person period.