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Desktop, stream-based, information management system

  • US 8,280,931 B2
  • Filed: 02/17/2012
  • Issued: 10/02/2012
  • Est. Priority Date: 06/28/1996
  • Status: Expired due to Fees
First Claim
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1. A method of operating a computer facility comprising:

  • providing a computer facility located in one or more locations with documents in respective formats according to respective different applications through which the provided documents are generated or modified, which formats differ from one of the document to another for at least some of said provided documents, said provided documents being delivered to the computer facility or generated by the computer facility;

    storing at least some of the documents provided to the computer facility in computer storage;

    said computer facility being configured to automatically generate and store in computer storage respective representations related to the documents provided thereto, thereby forming a main collection of document representations;

    said computer automatically generating and storing said main collection of document representations without requiring user interaction with the computer facility separately for each of said documents for a designation by a user of a directory structure, a physical location for storage of document representations or corresponding documents, or another pre-imposed document categorization structure;

    said automatically generated and stored representations of said documents including respective automatically generated time indicators associated with the documents corresponding to said representations;

    said automatically generated and stored representations of said documents further including respective automatically generated information relating the document representations to the respective documents provided to and stored in said computer facility;

    said automatically generated and stored main collection of document representations being unbounded in time and size consistent with the bound of the computer facility and being configured to include documents associated with time indicators related to different times;

    said automatically generated and stored main collection of document representations requiring no fixed beginning or end and being non-transitory and selectively searchable by the computer facility;

    providing selected search commands;

    causing said computer facility to perform a first search of at least said main collection of document representations according to selected first search commands, to provide first search results, and to utilize said first search results to generate a first sub-collection of document representations related to a respective sub-collection of the documents provided to the computer facility;

    selectively causing the computer facility to display on a computer screen graphical depictions of only a first portion of said first sub-collection of document representations generated by utilizing said first search results, said first portion corresponding to only a portion of the documents provided to and stored in the computer facility;

    said first portion of said first document sub-collection of document representations corresponding to a multi-document portion of the documents provided to and stored in said computer facility;

    said computer facility being configured to maintain at least one of said the main collection of document representations and said first sub-collection of document automatically responsive to events subsequent to the providing of said first search results such that additional document representations corresponding to additional documents provided to the computer facility subsequent to an initial display of said first portion of the first sub-collection of document representations and meeting said selected search commands are automatically included in a subsequent display of graphical depictions of one or more portions of said first sub-collection of document representations; and

    said additional document representations also including automatically generated respective time indicators associated with the documents subsequently provided to the computer facility.

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