Patent ID: 7908247

Claim:
A system for managing documents, comprising: a client service that executes on a user's computer, which assigns a unique version identifier to a version of a document; and a ratification server which executes a global service that communicates with the client service to receive the version identifier and the document, and if the version of the document is a linear descendant of a latest ratified version of the document, ratifies the version of the document identified by its associated unique version identifier as a new authoritative version of the document, and if the version of the document is not a linear descendant of the latest ratified version of the document, saves the version of the document identified by its associated unique version identifier as a version of a new document that is related to the document; wherein each of the unique version identifiers is globally unique in the system; wherein the global service determines whether the author of a version has a right to control the document, and does not ratify a version as a new authoritative version of the document if the author of the version lacks control of the document; and wherein the global service determines whether the author of a version has a right to control the document by detecting whether the author of a version is named on a list of authors who have control of the document.