Patent ID: 7580934

Claim:
An information processing apparatus for managing access rights to an object, comprising: a memory configured to store objects that are hierarchically managed and access rights information associated respectively therewith, the access rights information for each object indicating access rights for one or more users, and the objects including a low-level object having an inheritance attribute indicating whether or not the low-level object inherits access rights from an object at a higher level, wherein the inheritance attribute is distinct from the access rights information and wherein the inheritance attribute has a first value when the low-level object can inherit access rights from an object at a higher level and has a second value when the low-level object cannot inherit access rights from an object at a higher level; and a processor, said processor configured to function as a determination unit to determine a user's access rights with respect to the low-level object, wherein (i) if the inheritance attribute of the low-level object has the second value, which indicates that inheritance cannot be performed, the determination unit determines the user's access rights with respect to the low-level object based on access rights information associated with the low-level object, and (ii) if the inheritance attribute of the low-level object has the first value, which indicates that inheritance can be performed, the determination unit determines the user's access rights with respect to the low-level object based on access rights information associated with the low-level object, if the access rights information associated with the low-level object includes access rights for the user, and determines the user's access rights based on access rights information associated with a higher-level object that includes access rights information regarding the user, if the access rights information associated with the low-level object does not include access rights for the user, wherein the low-level object can have access rights information concerning one or more users and can inherit access rights information concerning other users.