Patent ID: 7353510

Claim:
A method for comparing objects comprising: selecting a first object and a second object, each object associated with an instance of at least one primary parameter and an instance of at least one secondary parameter, each secondary parameter associated with one of the primary parameters; comparing at least a portion of the first object and at least a portion of the second object to identify one or more differences between the selected objects; identifying at least a portion of the differences as ignorable based, at least in part, on the one or more primary parameters; and partially restoring the first object based on the second object using at least a portion of differences not identified as ignorable, wherein the restoring includes: selecting one or more primary parameters to be restored; selecting a secondary parameter instance from each object, the secondary parameter instance associated with one of the selected primary parameters; determining a non-dependent portion for each selected secondary parameter instance, the non-dependent portion comprising the value of the secondary parameter instance minus a value of the associated primary parameter instance; and replacing each selected secondary parameter instance from the first object with the primary parameter instance from the second object and the non-dependent portion from the selected secondary parameter instance from the first object.