Patent ID: 8266245

Claim:
A method of incrementally serving an online collaborative editable document having a plurality of versions, to a client computer comprising: receiving at a server a first request from a user at a client computer to view a first portion of an online collaboratively editable document, having a plurality of versions; transmitting by the server to the user the first portion of a first version of the online collaborative editable document over an electronic network in response to the first request; receiving at the server a second request from the user to receive a second portion of the document, wherein the second request indicates a version of the online collaborative editable document from which the user seeks the second portion of the online collaborative editable document, and provides a cryptographic value for verifying the user is authorized to receive the requested second portion of the online collaborative editable document from which the user is authorized to obtain additional portions beyond the first portion; determining by the server whether the user is authorized to receive the second portion from the version of the online collaborative editable document indicated by the second request; in response to determining that the client computer is not authorized to receive the second portion of the online collaborative editable document from the version of the online collaborative editable document indicated by the second request, outputting, by the server, an error message; and in response to determining that the user is authorized to receive the second portion of the online collaborative editable document from the version of the online collaborative editable document indicated by the second request, transmitting, by the server, the second portion of the document version indicated by the second request to the client computer; wherein subsequent to the server transmitting the first portion of the first version of the document to the user and prior to the server receiving the second request, receiving by the server edits to the first version of the document from a second user; preserving, by the server, an unedited version of the document for future access by the user; and storing, by the server, the edits to the first version, wherein the second portion of the version of the document is transmitted from the preserved, unedited version of the document, thereby serving the online collaborative editable document having the plurality of versions.