SYSTEM, METHOD AND APPARATUS FOR TRACKING DIGITAL CONTENT OBJECTS

• US 20120030187A1
• Filed: 07/18/2011
• Published: 02/02/2012
• Est. Priority Date: 04/24/2008
• Status: Abandoned Application

• Current Assignee: House of Development North America Incorporated
• Original Assignee: House of Development North America Incorporated
• Inventors: MARANO, Robert F., WHIDDEN, Christopher W., POHL, Daniel
• Application Number:
  US13/185,192
• Publication Number:
  US 20120030187A1
• Time in Patent Office: Days
• US Class Current: 707/709
• CPC Class Codes: G06F 16/986 Document structures and storage, e.g. HTML extensions
• CPC Class Codes: G06F 21/6218 to a system of files or objects, e.g. local or distributed file system or database
• CPC Class Codes: G06F 2221/2113 Multi-level security, e.g. mandatory access control

Abstract

A system and method for secure document management including tagging and/or remotely tracking documents exchanged between one or more users and a document repository. In some embodiments, the security policies for documents are determined based at least in part on document content, metadata associated with the document, and/or usage history of the document.

Claims

1. A method of tracking digital content objects, the method comprising:

associating a content object with a tag prior to delivering the content object from a first storage;

examining, by a web crawler, content objects stored on a second storage and determining at least one content object includes the tag; and

performing at least one action based at least in part on information included in the tag.

2. The method of claim 1, wherein the tag includes a remote tracking code configured to transmit information related to operations related to the content object and wherein the at least one action includes generating a chain of custody report based on information transmitted by the remote tracking code.

3. The method of claim 1, wherein associating the content object with a tag prior to delivering the content object from the first storage includes updating information included in the tag according to the delivering of the content object.

4. The method of claim 1, wherein the action includes at least one of operation selected from the list consisting of:

modifying the content object, modifying an attribute of the content object, removing the content object from the second storage, sending the content object to a server, validating integrity of information included in the content object, more

5. The method of claim 1, wherein the tag is embedded in a first content object and wherein the first content object is embedded in a second content object.

6. The method of claim 1, wherein examining content objects stored on the second storage is based on at least one parameter selected from the list consisting of:

a uniform resource locator (URL), a domain name, metadata related to the content objects, a list of content objects, a file type, a keyword, a file name, a file size, a list of files to be located, an IP address, a link from a website and a history parameter.

7. The method of claim 1, wherein the at least one action is based at least in part on one of:

a parameter related to the second storage, a parameter related to the at least one content object, a preconfigured parameter provided to the web crawler, metadata associated with the at least one content object, a usage history of the at least one content object, a security parameter associated with the least one content object, more

8. The method of claim 1, wherein the content object is one of:

a digital image, a text document and a multimedia content object.

9. The method of claim 1, wherein the tag is an invisible tag.

10. The method of claim 1, wherein the tag is inserted into a metadata field associated with the content object.

11. The method of claim 1, comprising encrypting the tag prior to associating the tag with the content object.

12. The method of claim 1, wherein the tag comprises a set of instructions capable of being read by an application used to access the content object.