Patent Document ID: 7698255
Application ID: 10341583

Base Claim:
1. A method for organizing knowledge data comprising: enabling a user to specify a subset of knowledge data, wherein the knowledge data is organized according to one or more topical categories, the knowledge data comprising (i) user profiles that include information about one or more individuals, and (ii) documents that include information content created, edited, and/or accessed by the individuals, and wherein the information about the individuals included in the user profiles includes affinities of the individuals to documents and affinities of the individuals to the topical categories; providing a place associated with the subset of the knowledge data, said place including at least one portal having a search window for searching the subset of the knowledge data, a list for displaying indicia associated with individuals having user profiles that include an affinity to the subset of knowledge data, and communication means to initiate communication with these individuals; enabling the user to initiate a search of the subset of the knowledge data using the search window; performing the search of the knowledge data initiated by the user, wherein performing the search comprises (i) identifying one or more of the documents that include information content related to the search and (ii) identifying one or more of the user profiles that include affinities to the identified documents; displaying indicia associated with the individuals that correspond to the user profiles that include affinities to the identified documents; enabling selection of one or more of the displayed indicia; and initiating communication with the individual or individuals associated with the selected indicia.

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Claim 4:
4. The method of claim 1 , wherein enabling the user to specify the subset of knowledge data comprises enabling the user to select one or more data repositories from a plurality of data repositories, the plurality of data repositories comprising data repositories of more than one repository type.