Patent ID: 7383263

Claim:
A computer system for protecting electronic documents, comprising: a repository for storing an electronic document having a document attribute; an access layer operable to control access to the electronic document, wherein the access layer is used by an accessor to access at least one portion of the electronic document, the accessor having an accessor attribute; a rule set; an expert system, wherein the expert system provides authorization information to the access layer in response to a request, and wherein the expert system is operable to determine the authorization information comprising an access behavior with regards to the at least one portion, and wherein the expert system determines access behavior by evaluating rules of the rule set with reference to at least the document attribute and the accessor attribute when the accessor tries to access the at least one portion using the access layer; and a framework, the framework generating a runtime representation of the document that references the document and restricts the access of the accessor to the document in accordance with the access behavior.