SYSTEM AND METHOD OF SIMULTANEOUS COLLABORATION

• US 20110078246A1
• Filed: 09/28/2010
• Published: 03/31/2011
• Est. Priority Date: 09/28/2009
• Status: Active Grant

• Current Assignee: Bjorn Michael Dittmer-Roche
• Original Assignee: Bjorn Michael Dittmer-Roche
• Inventors: Dittmer-Roche, Bjorn Michael
• Granted Patent: US 8,732,247 B2
• Time in Patent Office: Days
• US Class Current: 709/205
• CPC Class Codes: G06F 40/166 Editing, e.g. inserting or deleting
• CPC Class Codes: G06F 40/197 Version control for software G06F8/71
• CPC Class Codes: H04L 65/1101 Session protocols
• CPC Class Codes: H04L 65/4015 where at least one of the additional parallel sessions is real time or time sensitive, e.g. white board sharing, collaboration or spawning of a subconference

Abstract

A system and method of simultaneous collaboration is described. The described systems and methods can work with virtually any document structure and do not require advance locking. A plurality of possibly hierarchical, possibly overlapping domains within the document structure is defined. The server handling the simultaneous collaboration requests must keep track of conflicts in edits using the domain information and inform clients whether the edits have been accepted or rejected based on whether or not the edits cause conflicts. A well-designed domain structure as described will avoid conflicts.

Claims

1. A method for improving the efficiency of storing and transmitting compound edit data comprising:

defining a plurality of domains for a document, wherein the plurality of domains is associated with a set of edits; and

grouping and reordering the edits based on the domains associated with the set of edits.

2. A method for simultaneous collaboration, comprising:

defining a plurality of domains for a document;

receiving an indication of a first edited domain from a first client at a server;

receiving an indication of a second edited domain from a second client at the server;

the server comparing the first and second edited domains to obtain a set of edits; and

the server editing the document based on the comparison of the edited domains and the set of edits.

3. The method of claim 2, further comprising:

the server comparing the sequence of unique identifiers associated with the first and second edited domains.

4. The method of claim 2, further comprising the server storing the document in a dictionary or a tree-like structure associated with unique identifier objects.

5. The method of claim 4, further comprising:

a client requesting to insert data into an ordered list.

6. The method of claim 5 further comprising:

a client requesting to delete data from an ordered list;

a set of clients including the client hiding their respective copies of the data from the ordered list; and

deleting any data no longer requested by the set of clients.

7. The method of claim 2, further comprising:

the server allowing an undo or redo operation out-of-sequence based on the comparison of the first and second edited domains.

8. The method of claim 2, further comprising:

the server allowing some edits to be omitted from collaboration or undo/redo based on comparison of edit domains.

9. The method of claim 2, further comprising:

the server converging the first and second documents on the server, the first client and the second client via edited domains.

10. The method of claim 9, wherein the converging is performed upon request from one of the first client and the second client.

11. The method of claim 2, further comprising:

storing but not applying the set of edits to the document.

12. The method of claim 2, wherein the set of edits includes a plurality of edits from a plurality of clients.

13. A method for simultaneous collaboration requiring transfer of large amounts of data comprising:

receiving a request to perform an edit;

performing the edit on at least one of a first client and a second client;

extracting a minimal set of metadata required to perform represent the edit;

receiving an indication of a first edited domain from the first client at the server;

receiving an indication of a second edited domain from the second client at the server;

the server comparing the first and second edited domains to obtain a set of edits;

the server determining the edit sequence based on based on the comparison of the edited domains and the set of edits; and

the server transferring additional metadata related to the set of edits, wherein the additional metadata is transferred subsequent to a transfer of the minimal set of metadata from the server to one of the first edited domain and the second edited domain.

14. The method of the claim 13, wherein the large amount of data is a media file.

15. The method of claim 14, wherein the media file is an audio file.

16. The method of claim 13, further comprising:

the server allowing an undo/redo operation out-of-sequence based on the comparison of the first and second edited domains.

17. The method of claim 13, further comprising:

converging the first and second edited domains on the server, the first client, and the second client.

18. The method of claim 17, wherein the converging is performed upon request from one of the first client and the second client.

19. The method of claim 13, further comprising:

storing but not applying the set of edits to the document.

20. The method of claim 13, wherein the set of edits includes a plurality of edits from a plurality of clients.

21. The method of claim 13, further comprising:

the server comparing the sequence of unique identifiers associated with the first and second edited domains.