Patent Document ID: 7593924
Application ID: 10945149

Base Claim:
1. A method for responding to knowledge interchange queries, the method comprising: receiving and storing preferences for knowledge interchange profiles associated with a plurality of individuals from a plurality of client computers, the preferences being operative to indicate: an anonymity of a corresponding individual associated with information stored in a corresponding knowledge interchange profile and an exclusion of data from the corresponding knowledge interchange profile; receiving and storing the knowledge interchange profiles in a profile database, wherein each knowledge interchange profile comprises at least one keyword, at least one noun phrase, and at least one contact; performing out-of-process processing on the profile database to eliminate noise words from the profile database; receiving a request to query the profile database; executing the requested query over the profile database to identify search results; and returning the search results as a response to the query.

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Claim 4:
4. The method of claim 1 , wherein receiving the request to query the profile database comprises receiving a request to locate a first individual that makes a connection to another a second individual that is located outside an enterprise, and wherein executing the received requested query over the profile database comprises: searching the profile database to identify the first individual that has the second individual listed as a contact within the individual knowledge interchange profile.