Patent ID: 7797337

Claim:
A method for automatically associating data with a resource as metadata, the method comprising: defining a metadata association rule for a metadata associator, the metadata association rule specifying a data value to be associated with a resource as metadata based on a characteristic of the resource, the data value defined independently from a file system with which the resource is associated; providing a user interface for associating a resource with the metadata associator; and in response to the resource being associated with the metadata associator via the user interface, associating the data value with the resource as metadata based on the metadata association rule, wherein an other resource having the same characteristic as the characteristic of the resource has a data value that is approximately the same as the data value of the resource, the other resource further having a different characteristic than the characteristic of the resource and having at least one different data value field or data value in which the data value is associated with the other resource as metadata in response to the other resource being associated with the metadata associator, wherein associating the data value with the resource includes determining whether a metadata field associated with the resource with which the data value is to be associated contains data that is equivalent to the data value and associating the data value with the resource only in response to determining that the field does not contain data that is equivalent to the data value.