Patent Document ID: 7711676
Application ID: 10986628

Base Claim:
1. A computer program product, embodied in a computer-readable medium, the computer program product being operable to cause data processing apparatus to: a) receive, during a first time duration, a first electronic document being communicated between business entities, the first electronic document comprising instances of a plurality of business data elements, the first electronic document having a format corresponding to a business communication schema, wherein the business communication schema includes a set of predefined business data elements for use in electronically communicating business data from a first business entity to a second business entity; b) identify an instance of a particular business data element in the first electronic document; c) increment a counter associated with the particular business data element in response to identifying the instance of the particular business data element in the first electronic document; d) receive, during the first time duration, a second electronic document being communicated between business entities; e) identify an instance of the particular business data element in the second electronic document; f) increment the counter associated with the particular business data element in response to identifying the instance of the particular business data element in the second electronic document; g) subsequent to elapse of the first time duration, compare the counter with a threshold value; h) based on the counter being less than the threshold value, delete the particular business data element from the business communication schema; i) prior to deleting the particular business data element from the business communication schema, notify a user if the counter is less than the threshold value; j) receive an instruction from the user to remove the particular business data element from the business communication schema: k) reset the counter when the counter is at least equal to the threshold value; l) begin a second time duration upon resetting of the counter; and m) repeat operations b) through h) for a third electronic document being communicated between business entities during the second time duration.

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Claim 2:
2. The computer program product of claim 1 wherein the particular business data element is a first business data element of the plurality of business data elements, the counter is a first counter of a plurality of counters associated with the plurality of business data elements, wherein the first counter is associated with the first business data element, the computer program product being operable to cause data processing apparatus to: identify an instance of the first business data element in the first electronic document; increment the first counter in response to identifying the instance of the first business data element; identify an instance of a second business data element of the plurality of business data elements in the first electronic document; and increment a second counter of the plurality of counters, wherein the second counter is associated with the second business data element in response to identifying The instance of the second business data element.