Patent ID: 8195714

Claim:
A system that facilitates the association of data with a user, a first context associated with a first plurality of users and a second context associated with a second plurality of users, comprising: a storage device adapted to store data and contextual metadata, the contextual metadata being associated with: a) the user; b) a data component that is associated with one or more data operations being performed on the data; and c) a tagging component that automatically tags contextual information as the contextual metadata when the data is created, the contextual information being at least one of automatically generated information generated by the system upon creation of the data and automatically generated information generated by the system upon the one or more data operations being performed on the data; and a computer device linked via one or more communication links to the storage device, the computer device adapted to execute a software tool configured to perform the steps of: automatically tagging contextual information related to the user, the software tool, and the first context to the data as contextual metadata upon one or more data operations being performed on the data while in the first context to which the software tool is associated; automatically generating a plurality of pointers to the data for the first plurality of users as part of the contextual information upon entry of the data into the first context, each pointer linking one of the first plurality of users associated with the first context to the data; updating the contextual metadata based upon the one or more data operations; automatically tagging contextual information related to the user, the software tool, and the second context to the data as contextual metadata upon one or more data operations being performed on the data while in the second context to which the software tool is associated; automatically generating a plurality of pointers to the data for the second plurality of users as part of the contextual information upon entry of the data into the second context, each pointer linking one of the second plurality of users associated with the second context to the data; updating the contextual metadata based upon the one or more data operations.