Patent ID: 7133878

Claim:
A method for managing data, comprising: defining a secondary data set in a primary data set; linking the secondary data set to state information of the primary data set, the state information defining a state of the primary data set at a time when the secondary data set was defined; transmitting the secondary data set to an external entity; receiving a modified secondary data set from the external entity, the modified secondary data set including changes to the secondary data set; transmitting the primary data set to the external entity; receiving results of an evaluation based on the primary data set from the external entity; incorporating the results into the primary data set to produce a modified primary data set; and linking the modified secondary data set to a version of the primary data set stored with reference to the state information, a link between the modified secondary data set and the version of the primary data set allowing a user of the modified primary data set to access the modified secondary data set.