Enforcing legal holds of heterogeneous objects for litigation

• US 8,219,974 B2
• Filed: 12/07/2007
• Issued: 07/10/2012
• Est. Priority Date: 12/07/2007
• Status: Active Grant

• Current Assignee: SAP SE
• Original Assignee: SAP AG (SAP SE)
• Inventors: Schmidt, Olaf
• Primary Examiner(s): Zhen, Wei
• Assistant Examiner(s): Wu, Junchun
• Application Number:
  US12/001,028
• Publication Number:
  US 20090150866A1
• Time in Patent Office: 1,677 Days
• Field of Search: 717/120
• 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 non-transitory tangible media and operable to:

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

determine a hash value using data associated with the target object;

determine a primary key for the target object using the hash value, the primary key comprising a unique identifier for the target object in a centralized lookup table, the centralized lookup table comprising a plurality of hold records for objects of different types;

automatically communicate with the centralized lookup table using the primary key for the target object to verify a hold record associated with the target object;

identify an additional target object to associate with the particular legal hold, the additional target object having a different type than the target object;

automatically communicate with a decentralized lookup table to verify an additional hold record associated with the additional target object, the decentralized 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 additional hold record comprises;

identifying an object type of the additional target object; and

automatically communicating with the first lookup table or the second lookup table based on the identified object type.

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 associated with a first object type and a second object type, the target object associated with the first object type.

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

5. The software of claim 4, the hold record referencing a relationship graph indicating a relationship between the parent object and the target object.

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

7. 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.

8. The software of claim 1 further operable to:

determine a collision between the target object and another object of a different type than the target object having the hash value; and

resolving the conflict induced by the collision.

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

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

determine a hash value using data associated with the target object;

determine a primary key for the target object using the hash value, the primary key comprising a unique identifier for the target object in a centralized lookup table, the centralized lookup table including a plurality of hold records for objects of different types;

automatically communicate with the centralized lookup table using the primary key for the target object to determine a hold record identifying a legal hold associated with the target object;

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

identify an additional target object to associate with the particular legal hold, the additional target object having a different type than the target object;

automatically communicate with a decentralized lookup table to verify an additional hold record associated with the additional target object, the decentralized 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 additional hold record comprises;

identifying an object type of the additional target object; and

automatically communicating with the first lookup table or the second lookup table based on the identified object type.

10. The software of claim 9 further operable to prevent destruction of the target object based on the lookup table communication.

11. The software of claim 9 further operable to remove a legal hold on the target object by requesting deletion of the hold record from the legal hold table.

12. The software of claim 11, the target object associated with a registered application and the software further operable to automatically notify the registered application of the legal hold removal.

13. The software of claim 11, 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.

14. The software of claim 13, the parent object comprising a first object type and the target object comprising a second object type.

15. The software of claim 9, the object comprising an active business object associated with a business application.

16. The software of claim 15, the business application comprising a remote business application.

17. The software of claim 9, 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.

18. The software of claim 9 further operable to process a manual modification of the legal hold to the hold record.

19. The software of claim 9 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.

20. The software of claim 19, the second target object associated with a second business application.

21. The software of claim 19, the target object associated with a first object type and the second target object associated with a second object type.