Enforcing legal holds of heterogeneous objects for litigation

• US 20090150866A1
• Filed: 12/07/2007
• Published: 06/11/2009
• Est. Priority Date: 12/07/2007
• Status: Active Grant

• Current Assignee: SAP SE
• Original Assignee: SAP AG (SAP SE)
• Inventors: Schmidt, Olaf
• Granted Patent: US 8,219,974 B2
• Time in Patent Office: Days
• US Class Current: 717/120
• CPC Class Codes: G06Q 50/18 Legal services
• CPC Class Codes: G06Q 90/00 Systems or methods specially adapted for administrative, commercial, financial, managerial or supervisory purposes, not involving significant data processing

Abstract

Software for managing legal holds on objects identifies a target object to associate with a particular legal hold. The example software is further operable to automatically communicate with a lookup table to verify a hold record associated with the target object. In another example, the software for managing legal holds on objects can receive a legal hold status request for a target object associated with a business application. The software can automatically communicate with a lookup table to determine a hold record identifying a legal hold associated with the target object. The software is further operable to respond to the legal hold status request with a legal hold status based on the lookup table communication.

Claims

1. Software for managing legal holds on objects, the software comprising computer readable instructions embodied on tangible media and operable to:

identify a target object to associate with a particular legal hold; and

automatically communicate with a lookup table to verify a hold record associated with the target object.

2. The software of claim 1, wherein verifying the hold record comprises:

verifying existence of the hold record; and

if the hold record does not exist, creating the hold record associated with the target object.

3. The software of claim 1, the lookup table comprising a first lookup table associated with a first object type and a second lookup table associated with a second object type and wherein verifying the hold record comprises:

identifying an object type of the target object; and

automatically communicating with the particular lookup table based on the identified object type.

4. The software of claim 1, the lookup table associated with a first object type and a second object type, the target object associated with the first object type.

5. The software of claim 1, the hold record associated with the target object via a parent object of the target object.

6. The software of claim 5, the hold record referencing a relationship graph indicating a relationship between the parent object and the target object.

7. The software of claim 1, the object comprising an active business object associated with a business application.

8. The software of claim 1, the target object identified by a request from a requesting module via an exposed framework application programming interface (API) and the software further operable to register the requesting module.

9. The software of claim 1 further operable to:

determine a hash of the target object; and

verify the hold record at least partially using the hash.

10. Software for managing legal holds on objects, the software comprising computer readable instructions embodied on tangible media and operable to:

receive a legal hold status request for a target object associated with a business application;

automatically communicate with a lookup table to determine a hold record identifying a legal hold associated with the target object; and

respond to the legal hold status request with a legal hold status based on the lookup table communication.

11. The software of claim 10 further operable to prevent destruction of the target object based on the lookup table communication.

12. The software of claim 10 further operable to remove a legal hold on the target object by requesting deletion of the hold record from the legal hold table.

13. The software of claim 12, the target object associated with a registered application and the software further operable to automatically notify the registered application of the legal hold removal.

14. The software of claim 12, the legal hold on the target object comprising a legal hold on a parent object of the target object and wherein removing the legal hold on the target object comprises removing the legal hold on the parent object.

15. The software of claim 14, the parent object comprising a first object type and the target object comprising a second object type.

16. The software of claim 10, the object comprising an active business object associated with a business application.

17. The software of claim 16, the business application comprising a remote business application.

18. The software of claim 10, the target object identified by a request from a requesting module via an exposed framework application programming interface (API) and the software further operable to register the requesting module for subsequent notification if the target object is subject to a legal hold.

19. The software of claim 10 further operable to process a manual modification of the legal hold to the hold record.

20. The software of claim 10 further operable to:

receive a second legal hold status request for a second target object;

automatically communicate with the lookup table to determine a second hold record identifying a legal hold associated with the second target object; and

respond to the second legal hold status request with a second legal hold status based on the particular lookup table communication.

21. The software of claim 20, the second target object associated with a second business application.

22. The software of claim 20, the target object associated with a first object type and the second target object associated with a second object type.