User interface for controlling access to computer objects

• US 7,636,890 B2
• Filed: 07/25/2005
• Issued: 12/22/2009
• Est. Priority Date: 06/26/2003
• Status: Active Grant

• Current Assignee: Microsoft Technology Licensing LLC (Microsoft Corporation)
• Original Assignee: Microsoft Corporation
• Inventors: Cheng, Lili, Turski, Andrzej, Marcjan, Cezary
• Primary Examiner(s): Chow; Dennis-Doon
• Assistant Examiner(s): Nguyen; Le
• Application Number:
  US11/188,555
• Publication Number:
  US 20050256842A1
• Time in Patent Office: 1,611 Days
• Field of Search: 715/741
• US Class Current: 715/741
• CPC Class Codes: G06F 21/6218 to a system of files or objects, e.g. local or distributed file system or database

Abstract

A computer object access control graphical user interface allows a user to set computer locations where a computer object may be accessed and other users who may access the computer object. The computer object may be a computer file, a computer message, person contact information, etc. The access control user interface may operate, for example, to save a computer object to one or more computer locations, and also to specify sharing of the computer object with one or more other users so that they can access the object. Saving a computer object and setting the sharing of it are together referred to as controlling access to the object, the former referring to where the object may be accessed from and the latter referring to who may access the object. This provides, therefore, a unified interface for selecting and displaying destinations that can be either a file store or a person, thereby unifying the control of access to a computer object.

Claims

1. A method for automatically controlling access to one or more objects, comprising:

employing at least one processor to execute computer executable instructions stored on a computer readable medium to perform the following acts;

monitoring computer system activity to collect context data;

storing metadata indicative of the context data;

employing the metadata to create associations between objects; and

automatically controlling access to an object based on the object'"'"'s associations with other objects, wherein controlling access to the object comprises setting object sharing controls.

2. The method of claim 1, wherein employing the metadata to create associations further comprises chunking the objects into sub-groups based on one or more criteria.

3. The method of claim 1, wherein employing the metadata to create associations further comprises determining a relative importance of the objects.

4. The method of claim 1, the context data being at least one of user computer activities, computer actions, interactions between the user and computer objects, computer system events, computer communications and external data.

5. The method of claim 1, wherein the associated objects are at least one of computer files and contacts.

6. The method of claim 1, further comprising supplying contextual information not readily available to the computer system.

7. The method of claim 1, wherein the context data is collected from multiple users.

8. The method of claim 2, wherein the one or more criteria can be defined by a user.

9. The method of claim 1, wherein the associations between objects is based upon similarity between objects.

10. The method of claim 9, further comprising applying weightings to indicate a degree of similarity between objects.

11. The method of claim 10, further comprising sorting objects based upon their applied similarity weightings.

12. The method of claim 1, further comprising notifying a user that one or more associations have been created between an object and one or more objects associated therewith.

13. The method of claim 12, further comprising, in response to a notification of object association, selectively enabling or disabling the association.

14. The method of claim 1, wherein the associations are created across applications supporting cross-application object integration.