Patent ID: 7788360

Claim:
A process for controlling the sharing of data entities among a plurality of intercommunicating computers, wherein at least one of said computers is a server computer, and wherein each computer which is not a server computer is a client computer, said process comprising the steps of: (a) storing a large set of said data entities of a plurality of data types at the server computer; (b) storing a small set of said data entities of selected data types at said client computers; (c) periodically communicating new, modified, or deleted data entities to said server computer from said client computers; (d) storing on said server computer a data sharing table including: (1) a source column listing each client data sending computer which is to communicate data entities with any other of said computers; (2) a destination column listing each client data receiving computer matched with each client data sending computer from which data entities are to be communicated to a given client data receiving computer; and (3) a data identification column matching each data type with each client data sending computer which will communicate data entities of a given data type and each client data receiving computer which will receive data entities of said given data type from selected client data sending computers; and (e) upon any client data sending computer communicating a new, modified, or deleted data entity to said server computer, said server computer communicating said new, modified, or deleted data entity to any client data receiving computer designated by said data sharing table to receive a data entity of the data type of said new, modified, or deleted data entity from said client data sending computer.