Patent ID: 8443040

Claim:
A method for synchronizing, in a system having a plurality of nodes, presentation of a dynamic data set to the plurality of nodes, the method comprising: generating, by a host node in a plurality of nodes, a dynamic data set that is shared with the plurality of nodes; receiving, by the host node from a consumer node in the plurality of nodes, a plurality of data packets representing a change to the dynamic data set, the change to the dynamic data set being an annotation to the dynamic data set made by the consumer node; transmitting, by the host node to a synchronization engine of a computing device separate from the host node, the plurality of data packets received from the consumer node; generating, by the synchronization engine, metadata information representing a difference between the dynamic data set and the plurality of data packets, the metadata information identifying a first set of data packets from the plurality of data packets and a second, different set of data packets from the plurality of data packets; transmitting, by the synchronization engine to the plurality of nodes, the metadata information and the first set of data packets to a first node in the plurality of nodes for use by the first node in synchronizing the presentation of the dynamic data set; and transmitting, by the synchronization engine to the plurality of nodes, the metadata information and the second, different set of data packets to a second node in the plurality of nodes for use by the second node in synchronizing the presentation of the dynamic data set.