Methods and systems for tracking document lineage

US 20080040388A1

(i9) United States

(12) Patent Application Publication (i0) Pub. No.: US 2008/0040388 Al

Petri et al. (43) Pub. Date: Feb. 14,2008

(54) METHODS AND SYSTEMS FOR TRACKING DOCUMENT LINEAGE

(76) Inventors: Jonah Petri, Mountain View, CA (US); Yan Arrouye, Mountain View, CA (US); Scott Forstall,

Mountain View, CA (US)

Correspondence Address:

BLAKELY SOKOLOFF TAYLOR & ZAFMAN
1279 OAKMEAD PARKWAY
SUNNYVALE, CA 94085-4040

(21) Appl. No.: 11/499,525

(22) Filed: Aug. 4, 2006

Publication Classification

(51) Int. CI.

G06F17/00 (2006.01)

(52) U.S. CI 707/104.1

(57) ABSTRACT

Systems and methods for managing data, such as metadata, are disclosed. In one exemplary method, metadata representing a document lineage are stored, and the stored metadata are searched. The metadata representing a document lineage may comprise a document identifier, identifying a collection of related documents; a file identifier, identify document branches in the collection of related documents; and version identifier, identifying a version of document within a branch of documents. The searching of metadata allows the identifying and tracking of document lineage through modification and duplication operations. Other methods are described and data processing systems and machine readable media are also described.

Create or Import a document
41

Generate a document identifier to identify a collection
of document - either generate a new document
identifier or retrieve a document identifier
42

Generate a file identifier - either create any file
identifier, or retrieve a file identifier
43

Generate a version identifier - either create a version
identifier, or update a version identifier
44

Generate a metadata identifier comprising the
document identifier, the file identifier, and the version
identifier
45

Assign the metadata identifier to the document
46

Store the metadata identifier in a metadata database
47