Patent ID: 7424543

Claim:
A method to allow a user of a local computer to access a remote computer file with a remote application, the method comprising: (a) providing a computer server system connected to a communications network; (b) the server system detecting the activation by the user of a hyperlink associated with the computer file; (c) operating on said computer server system at least one application program that is compatible with or capable of loading and operating upon said computer file, and that has a graphical user interface; (d) opening the computer file in the application program; and (e) operating a thin client of the terminal emulation type on the local computer, the thin client displaying the graphical user interface of said application program to said user and allowing the user to provide input to the application program running on the remote computer; and (f) restricting said recipient user's access to and manipulation of the computer file, wherein said file access and manipulation restrictions comprise restrictions that are selected from the group consisting of: (1) whether the computer file may be accessed; (2) a number of times the computer file may be accessed; (3) a time period during which the computer file may be accessed; (4) whether the computer file may be printed locally; (5) whether the computer file may be saved onto said remote recipient user computing device; (6) whether the computer file or portions thereof may be copied onto the local computer memory clipboard of the remote recipient user computing device; (7) whether, after alteration by said recipient user, the computer file or portions thereof may be saved onto said computer server system, whereby the original copy of said data file is replaced by the altered file, and said application file hyperlink is now associated with said altered file, and (8) whether, after alteration by said recipient user, the computer file or portions thereof may be saved onto said computer server system, whereby the original copy of said data file is not replaced by the altered file and remains on the storage system of said server system, whereby control and protection of the computer file is retained, while providing simple and easy access to the user via said server based applications delivered via thin client.