Patent ID: 7209948

Claim:
A method for reviewing a digital document, the method comprising the steps of: presenting the digital document synchronously to multiple users at respective computer systems, wherein the presenting is by visual interfaces of respective client applications running on the respective computer systems; recording annotations for the digital document made by a first one of the users, wherein the annotations made by the first user are recorded independently of the first user's client application, the first user's annotations being associated with an overlay of the first user, wherein the annotations and the overlay are logically linked to the digital document such that respective portions of the first user's overlay correspond to respective portions of the digital document; presenting the overlay synchronously to the multiple users; and delivering a new annotation of the first user synchronously to the multiple users for updating of the respective multiple users' presentations of the overlay, wherein the synchronous delivering is responsive to the first user making the new annotation, and wherein the synchronous presenting of the digital document and the overlay includes asynchronously presenting portions of the digital document and the overlay to the multiple users, such that the multiple users are independently presented respective portions of the digital document selected by the respective users and respectively corresponding portions of the overlay, wherein the first user changing the portion of the digital document and corresponding portion of the overlay presented to the first user does not change the respective portions of the digital document and corresponding portions of the first user's overlay presented to the other ones of the multiple users.