Patent ID: 6976259

Claim:
An object management system comprising a computer system: a data structure for at least one object in a set of objects in said object management system, comprising for said at least one object a set of object states in which said object may be maintained, a set of transitions between object states, and a current object state; computer-readable server instructions that receive requests from a client for said object and computer-readable server instructions that retrieve from said data structure at least a subset of transitions between object states, where said subset of transitions to at least another state is based upon transitions out of the current object state; computer-readable server instructions that return to said client an indication of at least the subset of transitions between object states; and a set of computer-readable instructions residing on a client, said computer-readable instructions requesting from said computer-readable server instructions a subset of state transitions for the at least one object, receiving in return the subset of state transitions, and presenting a user with operations capable of being performed on said object where the operations are based on the subset of state transitions.