Patent ID: 7346852

Claim:
A method of managing a casual storage field, comprising the steps of: receiving a plurality of information elements from one or more application programs, each information element including one or more data items, the receiving including determining whether data of a designated data type in the received plurality of information elements are stored in a mediate region provided by an operating system, and when it is determined that the mediate region stores the data of the designated data type in the plurality of information elements, obtaining the plurality of information elements from the mediate region, and when it is determined that the mediate region does not store the data of the designated type in the plurality of information elements, obtaining the plurality of information elements from the one or more application programs; retaining the received information elements in said casual storage field; displaying a state of said casual storage field and the retained information elements; and handing over, in response to a user request, one or more of the retained information elements to one of the application programs; wherein, when each one of the information elements is received, date and time at which the information element is received are obtained and retained in the information element.