Patent ID: 8572022

Claim:
A method for resolving synchronization conflict, the method comprising: identifying at a first computing device, via network communications with a remote synchronization service, a second computing device; determining there is a synchronization conflict between a change to a first synchronized item at the first computing device and a change to a second synchronized item at the identified second computing device, the identified second computing device being a peer device of the first computing device; determining, in response to the synchronization conflict: whether the first computing device has written a token value in order to become a resolver for the conflict, and in response to the first computing device writing a token value, selecting the first computing device to be the resolver for the conflict; and in response to the first computing device not writing the token value, not selecting the first computing device sufficient to enable the second computing device to become the resolver for the conflict; and responsive to the first computing device being selected as the resolver, performing, by the first computing device as the resolver, rule-based conflict resolution to automatically resolve the determined synchronization conflict without requiring user input, the rule-based conflict resolution being based on a set of multiple rules and at least in part on a type of the change to the first synchronized item, a type of the change to the second synchronized item; and sending, by the first computing device as the resolver, a notification of the rule-based conflict resolution to the second computing device.