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US006510420B1
(12) United States Patent ao) Patent No.: us 6,510,420 Bi
Cessna et al. (45) Date of Patent: Jan. 21,2003
A system and method for dynamically building hierarchical groupings ol business information based on member characteristics. The system includes a computer program that comprises: (1) a mechanism for choosing one or more characteristic orderings (i.e., a hierarchical model), a characteristic set made up ol N characteristics, and an initial set ol members; (2) a mechanism for assigning characteristic values for each ol the N characteristics for each ol the initial set ol members; (3) a mechanism for dynamically creating hierarchical levels and level to level relationships based on the chosen characteristic order; and (4) a mechanism for dynamically creating new members and member to member relationships in each ol the hierarchical levels.
33 Claims, 7 Drawing Sheets
