Patent ID: 7958087
Filing Date: 2011-06-07
Classification: G06F,G06Q,Y10S

Abstract:
1. A method of propagating a digital asset identification tag associated with a digital asset of a distributed computing environment, the environment having a central computing device that at least stores the digital asset identification tag for the digital asset and one or more clients that locally stores the digital asset, the method comprising: (a) receiving a command from a client of the distributed computing system to the central computing resource, the command comprising an indication that a change occurred to the asset identification tag of a digital asset of the client and the changed digital asset identification tag; (b) locating the digital asset identification tag at the central resource; (c) updating the digital asset identification tag in response to the received command to generate an updated digital asset identification tag; and (d) transmitting to another clients having a copy of the digital asset the updated digital asset identification tag; wherein the digital asset identification tag includes a global unique identifier field which is constructed and arranged to store a global unique identifier of the digital asset to uniquely identify the digital asset among other digital assets; wherein receiving the command includes obtaining, within the global unique identifier field of the digital asset identification tag, the global unique identifier of the digital asset; the global unique identifier being a hash result generated via application of a hash result generated via application of a hash function, by a client, to contents of the digital asset; and wherein the digital asset identification tag further includes a level identifier field which is constructed and arranged to store a level identifier one of (i) an “unmanaged” value indicating that the digital asset identification tag is not persistently stored by the client and not persistently stored by the central computing device, (ii) a “managed” value indicating that the digital asset identification tag is persistently stored by the client and not persistently stored by the central computing device, and (iii) a “records managed” value indicating that the digital asset identification tag is persistently stored by the client and persistently stored by the central computing device.