Patent ID: 7373590
Filing Date: 2008-05-13
Classification: G06F,G06Q

Abstract:
1. In a computing environment for propagating annotations to electronic documents among a plurality of users' computers, a method for sharing handwritten annotation data related to one or more pages of a document among a plurality of users' computers associated with the document, the method comprising: an act of receiving a first user's handwritten annotations from the first user's computer among a plurality of users' computers, each of the users' computers having annotation access to a public data entry area available to each of the plurality of users' computers, the public data entry area being configured for sharing handwritten annotations received from one or more of the plurality of users' computers with one or more other of the plurality of users' computers such that the received handwritten annotations appear to be written on a common display surface shared among the plurality of users' computers in real time; an act of determining in a first determination that the first user's handwritten annotations are public data; an act of automatically writing the handwritten annotations of the first user to the public data entry area in response to the first determination that the first user's handwritten annotations are public data; an act of displaying a list of users who provided public data; an act of receiving at least one subscription request from one or more of the plurality of user's computers to subscribe to the first user's handwritten annotations in response to a selection of the first user in the list of users who provided public data; an act of adding at least one of the plurality of users to a list of subscribers that are subscribed to access the first user's handwritten annotations based on the received at least one subscription request; an act of displaying on the first user's display the list of subscribers to the first user's handwritten annotations; an act of determining in a second determination that the first user has indicated in the displayed list of subscribers that one or more of the subscribers that are subscribed to the first user's handwritten annotations is to be denied subscription to the first user's handwritten annotations; based on the second determination, an act of selectively denying on a per-user basis the one or more of the subscribers indicated by the first user to be denied subscription to the first user's handwritten annotations from being added to the list of subscribers that are subscribed to access the first user's handwritten annotations; an act of distributing the first user's handwritten annotations to computers of users who are on the list of subscribers to access the first user's annotations; and an act of preventing distribution of the first user's handwritten annotations to computers of users who were selectively denied from being added to the list of subscribers subscribed to access the first user's handwritten annotations.