Method and system for document retrieval with selective document comparison

• US 10,055,409 B2
• Filed: 08/18/2015
• Issued: 08/21/2018
• Est. Priority Date: 03/14/2013
• Status: Active Grant

• Current Assignee: Workshare Technology Incorporated
• Original Assignee: Workshare Technology Incorporated
• Inventors: Von Weihe, Daniel
• Primary Examiner(s): Pham, Hung Q
• Application Number:
  US14/829,523
• Publication Number:
  US 20160085752A1
• Time in Patent Office: 1,099 Days
• CPC Class Codes: G06F 16/2358 Change logging, detection, and notification replication G06F16/27
• CPC Class Codes: G06F 16/248 Presentation of query results
• CPC Class Codes: G06F 16/93 Document management systems
• CPC Class Codes: G06F 40/14 Tree-structured documents parsing G06F40/205; validation G06F40/226
• CPC Class Codes: G06F 40/197 Version control for software G06F8/71

Abstract

This invention discloses a novel system and method for displaying electronic documents on remote devices and enabling collaborative editing where the system upon a request by a user to access a document, automatically determines the latest version of a document that the person had accessed and also whether a newer version had been created. The invention also merges parallel changes that have not been viewed by the user into the comparison result. The invention also includes running a comparison on the two versions and presenting the result to the user.

Claims

1. A method executed by a computer system comprised of a server computer and a remote computer operated by a user for providing a user operating the remote computer access to a document embodied in at least two versions stored on the server comprising:

receiving from a user'"'"'s remote device data representing a request for access to the document;

by automatically inspecting a data structure stored on the server representing a revision history of the document, said data structure representing the revision history being organized in a tree-structure, making a first determination of a first version of the document that is the latest version that has been viewed by the user operating the remote device, making a second determination whether there is at least two second versions of the document that is represented by at least two corresponding leaf-nodes in the tree-structured data structure;

in dependence on the second determination, transmitting a query to the remote computer, said query comprised of data representing references to the at least two second versions;

receiving from the remote device a response to the query, said response comprised of a selection of one of the at least two second versions; and

generating a comparison report between the first version and the selected one of the at least two second versions of the document.

2. The method of claim 1 where the comparison report is comprised of data representing highlights of the changes between the first version and the selected one of at least two second versions of the document.

3. The method of claim 2 further comprising:

transmitting the comparison report to the remote device operated by the user; and

updating a document access history data structure to indicate that the requesting user has viewed the selected one of at least two second versions of the document.

4. The method of claim 1 where the transmitting step is comprised of transmitting data representing a diagram of at least a portion of the revision history related to at least three versions of the document.

5. The method of claim 1 further comprising a determining using the tree structured data structure whether the selected one of at least two second versions of the document has an at least one related third versions where the at least one related third version is not an ancestor document in the revision history to the selected one of at least two second versions of the document, and in dependence on said determination, selecting one of the at least one related third versions, merging the changes in the selected at least one of the related third versions into the selected one of at least two second versions of the document in order to cause the comparison to contain a compilation of the merged changes.

6. The method of claim 1 where the second determination step is comprised of:

automatically selecting one of the at least two document versions represented by the two corresponding leaf nodes determining which of the two document versions associated with the two corresponding leaf nodes is an ancestor document version in the revision history that was a version saved by the user operating the remote device.

7. The method of claim 1 where the second determination step is comprised of:

automatically selecting one of the at least two document versions represented by the two corresponding leaf nodes by determining which of the two document versions associated with the two corresponding leaf nodes is an ancestor document version in the revision history that was saved by a user who is associated with a data parameter representing a seniority level above the seniority level of the user operating the remote device.

8. The method of claim 1 where the second determination step is comprised of:

automatically selecting one of the at least two document versions represented by the two corresponding leaf nodes by determining which of the two document versions associated with the two corresponding leaf nodes is an ancestor document version in the revision history that is associated with a stored data parameter that represents a designation of that document version as taking precedence over at least one other version of the document referred to in the revision history.

9. A computer system comprised of a server and a remote device for providing a user operating the remote computer access to a one version of a document embodied in at least two versions stored on the server comprising:

a component adapted by logic for receiving from a user'"'"'s remote device data representing a request for access to the document;

a component adapted by logic for automatically inspecting a data structure stored on the server representing the revision history of the document organized as a tree-structure, making a first determination of a first version of the document that is the latest version that has been viewed by the user operating the remote device, and

making a second determination whether there is at least two second versions of the document that are represented by at least two corresponding leaf-nodes in the tree-structured data structure;

a component adapted by logic for transmitting a query to the remote device in dependence on the second determination said query comprised of data representing references to the at least two second versions;

a component adapted by logic for receiving from the remote device a response to the query, said response comprised of a selection of one of the at least two second versions;

a component adapted by logic for, generating a comparison report between the first version and the selected one of the at least two second versions of the document.

10. The computer system of claim 9 further adapted by logic to generate the comparison report so that it is comprised of data that highlights the changes between the first version and the one of at least two selected second versions of the document.

11. The computer system of claim 10 further comprising:

a component adapted by logic for transmitting the comparison report to the remote device operated by the user; and

a component adapted by logic for updating a document access history data structure to indicate that the user operating the remote device has viewed the selected one of the at least two second versions of the document.

12. The system of claim 9 where the transmitting component is further adapted by logic to transmit data representing a diagram of at least a portion of the revision history related to at least three versions of the document.

13. The system of claim 9 further comprising a component adapted by logic to determine using the tree structured data structure whether the selected one of at least two second versions of the document has an at least one related third versions where the at least one related third version is not an ancestor document to the selected one of the at least one second versions of the document, and if it is determined that at least one related third version that is not an ancestor document exists, then select at least one of the determined related third versions, and merge the changes in the selected at least one related third versions into the selected one of at least one second versions of the document in order to cause the comparison transmitted to the remoted device to contain a compilation of the merged changes.

14. The system of claim 9 where the component adapted by logic for automatically inspecting a data structure is further adapted by logic to automatically select one of the at least two document versions represented by the two corresponding leaf nodes by determining which of the two document versions associated with the two corresponding leaf nodes is an ancestor document version in the revision history that was a version saved by the user operating the remote device.

15. The system of claim 9 where component adapted by logic for automatically inspecting a data structure is further adapted by logic to automatically select one of the at least two document versions represented by the two corresponding leaf nodes by determining which of the two document versions associated with the two corresponding leaf nodes is an ancestor document version in the revision history that was saved by a user who is associated with a data parameter representing a seniority level above the seniority level of the user operating the remote device.

16. The system of claim 9 where the component adapted by logic for automatically inspecting a data structure is further adapted by logic to automatically select one of the at least two document versions represented by the two corresponding leaf nodes by determining which of the two document versions associated with the two corresponding leaf nodes is an ancestor document version in the revision history-that is associated with a stored data parameter that represents a designation of that document version as taking precedence over at least one other version of the document referred to in the revision history.