Patent ID: 7788622

Claim:
A method for routing conductive paths for a printed circuit board (PCB), comprising: (a) receiving a pin pair assignment at a client computer from a server computer, the assignment identifying pins of one or more components for which location information is contained in a PCB design and for which a connecting conductive path is to be routed; (b) automatically finding a route at the client computer for a conductive path between the identified pins; (c) transmitting an edit request from the client computer to the server computer, the edit request proposing the found route; (d) receiving, at the client computer from the server computer, an indication that the proposed route is incorporated into the PCB design; and (e) updating, subsequent to receipt of the indication and at the client computer, a local copy of the PCB design to include the found route; (f) receiving at the client computer, from the server computer and subsequent to receipt of the indication in step (d), a second pin pair assignment identifying pins of one or more components for which location information is contained in the PCB design; (g) automatically finding, at the client computer and using the local copy of the PCB design having the update from step (e), a route for a conductive path between the pins of the second pin pair assignment; (h) transmitting an edit request from the client computer to the server computer proposing the route found in step (g); (i) receiving an indication that the route proposed in step (h) is incorporated into the PCB design; and (j) updating, subsequent to receipt of the indication in step (i), the local copy of the PCB design to include the route found in step (g).