Patent ID: 8407345

Claim:
A method of controlling application usage and document access in a plurality of computers comprising: using a first policy enforcer program, evaluating at least one rule pertaining to an occurrence of an event, wherein the at least one rule is among a plurality of rules stored on a first computer, the first policy enforcer program is executing on the first computer, each rule comprises an expression having a rule element and a corresponding action that will be performed when the expression is satisfied, and the at least one rule contains at least one expression used by the evaluating step to decide whether to perform an action, the at least one expression comprises: a first expression to cause evaluation of a first condition by the first policy enforcer program and generate a first evaluation result; a second expression to cause communicating by the first computer of a second condition to a second computer, different from the first computer, comprises determining a second policy enforcer program is executing on the second computer; a third expression to instruct evaluation by the second policy enforcer program, executing at the second computer, of the second condition, determining at least one low level file operation, associated with the action, to be performed at the second computer, determining that the at least one low level file operation is allowable, and causing the second policy enforcer program to generate a second evaluation result and communicate the second evaluation result to the first computer; and a fourth expression to cause the first policy enforcer program to obtain a third evaluation result using the first and second evaluation results.