Patent ID: 7136873

Claim:
A method of performing an operation on data stored in a relational database, comprising: receiving a request, pertaining to a set of objects, to perform an operation on the data in the relational database, wherein the data is related to a set of objects, each object having similar properties; receiving an input; modifying the request to include at least one restriction pertaining to which data will be accessed as a function of the input; receiving information related to access restrictions to the data of the set of objects; checking if access restrictions exist on objects pertaining to the request; executing the modified request to perform the operation if the request pertains to retrieving all of the data pertaining to at the least one object and there are no access restrictions to the data of said at least one object or if the request pertains to retrieving only a portion, but not all, of the data pertaining to said at least one object and the access restrictions do not pertain to the portion of the data of said at least one object.