Abstract: An exemplary embodiment of the present invention includes a method to enforce privacy preferences on exchanges of personal data of a data-subject. The method comprises the steps of: specifying data-subject authorization rule sets having subject constraints, receiving a request message from a requester and a requester privacy statement, comparing the requester privacy statement to the subject constraints, and releasing the data-subject data in a response message to the requester only if the subject constraints are satisfied. The requester privacy statement includes purpose, retention, recipient, and access information, wherein the purpose information specifies the purpose for which the requested data is acquired, the retention information specifies a retention policy for the requested data, the recipient information specifies the recipients of the requested data, and the access information specifies whether the requested data should be accessing to the data-subject after the data has been released.

Abstract: A system, method, and business method is used to enforce privacy preferences on exchanges of personal data over a computer network. There are one or more data-subject (subject) rule sets that have one or more subject constraints on one or more private, subject data releases. A receiving process receives a request message from a data-requester (requester) over a network interfaces. The request message has one or more requests for one or more of the private, subject data releases pertaining to a subject, and a requester privacy statement for each of the respective private data. A release process compares the requester privacy statement to the subject constraints (authorization rules) and releases the private, subject data release in a response message to the requester only if the subject constraints are satisfied.

Abstract: An object-oriented mechanism is disclosed that allows new configuration data to replace existing configuration data within an existing object-oriented program. The new configuration data allows an OO program to be quickly and easily generated from an existing OO program without manually changing the source code of the existing OO program. When a factory object creates an object in the existing OO program, the new configuration data that defines a modified class is used to create the object. In this manner class substitution or redefinition in an OO program is easily accomplished, thereby allowing a new OO program to be easily generated from an existing OO program (or framework).

Abstract: A method of, and apparatus for, running several applications concurrently on a processing system. Virtual terminals are created for running the applications. However, the virtual terminals perform as though the processing system were a single terminal system. In this way, any application written for a single terminal system can run in this multiple virtual terminal environment. For interaction with one of the several applications running on this system, the real physical resources of the system are reallocated to the virtual terminal running the selected application.

Abstract: A method of, and apparatus for, running several applications concurrently on a processing system. Virtual terminals are created for running the applications. However, the virtual terminals perform as though the processing system were a single terminal system. In this way, any application written for a single terminal system can run in this multiple virtual terminal environment. For interaction with one of the several applications running on this system, the real physical resources of the system are reallocated to the virtual terminal running the selected application.

Abstract: An interactive display terminal of the multiple overlapping window type is provided. Each of the windows is smaller in dimension than the overall display screen. One or more of the windows have an associated virtual distributed menu which is made up of a plurality of menu items respectively distributed about the periphery of the associated window but not displayed during normal operations. Cursor means and means for moving the cursor are also provided. The display terminal further includes apparatus which in response to the movement of the cursor across a selected region in a window periphery will effect the display of a selected menu item associated with the particular selected region. The overlapping windows are preferably rectangular in shape and the selected regions are adjacent to corners of the periphery. The menu items are distributed so as to be positioned adjacent to the respective region across which the cursor movement will result in the item display.

Abstract: In a technique for storing data representative of characters and symbols of a font in a compacted manner, interstitial bank spaces between characters are removed. The proper symbol is addressed during decompression by combining a calculated approximate pointer with a limited range correction factor stored with the font to obtain an exact start of symbol pointer utilized to address the image data for the symbol. Also stored with the correction factor is data indicating the vertical positioning of the symbol within the character box.