Patent ID: 7496611

Claim:
A computer implemented method for disambiguating a globally universal identifier (GUID) within a file after the file is duplicated, the method comprising: generating a GUID for the file, wherein the file is located on a client computing apparatus; generating a location identifier that defines a unique location of the file on the client computing apparatus when the GUID was generated, wherein the location identifier comprises a plurality of parameters, the plurality of parameters comprising: a file name of the file containing the GUID, a file path of the file, a media access control (MAC) address of a machine where the file is located, a name of the machine, a drive identifier identifying a drive on which the file is stored, a serial number of a chip where the file is located, and a size of the drive where the file is stored; storing the location identifier in association with the GUID on the client computing apparatus; opening and examining the file to load the file on the client computing apparatus, wherein opening the file to load the file on the client computing apparatus comprises at least one of: opening a file copied to a different location on the client computing apparatus from within an authoring application executed on the client computing apparatus and opening a file moved to a different location on the client computing apparatus from within an authoring application executed on the client computing apparatus, the authoring application comprising a disambiguation module for disambiguating the GUID; determining whether the location identifier matches a current location of the file on the client computing apparatus; and in response to determining that the location identifier does not match the current location, generating a new GUID and replacing the GUID with the new GUID on the client computing apparatus.