Patent Document ID: 7533124
Application ID: 11373340

Base Claim:
1. A distributed ontology system comprising: a central computer comprising a global ontology directory, wherein the global ontology directory comprises a master catalogue with links to class definitions and relation definitions in a plurality of repositories; a plurality of ontology server computers, each ontology server computer of the plurality of the ontology server computers comprise a repository in the plurality of the repositories, wherein the repository in the plurality of the repositories comprises the class definitions, the relation definitions, superclass and subclass relationships, and wherein said each ontology server computer of the plurality of the ontology server computers comprises a publisher that publishes the class definitions and the relation definitions to the central computer; a computer network connecting the central computer with the ontology server computers, wherein at least one relation definition within an ontology server computer of the ontology server computers references classes from a different ontology server computer of the ontology server computers, and at least one superclass and subclass relationship reside on the different ontology server computer than the ontology server computer containing superclass and subclass; an authoring tool comprising functions for creating the class definitions and the relation definitions and adding new class definitions and new relation definitions to at least one repository in the plurality of repositories; an XML embedder embedding XML schema into the at least one repository in the plurality of the repositories; a library comprising an application programming interface for locating the class definitions and the relation definitions; a view generator generating views associated with a specific class and represents a collection of class attributes; an XML generator generating XML schema and a single XML schema type element from the generated views; a directory manager receiving the published class definitions and relation definitions from the ontology server computer and updating the global ontology directory with the published class definitions and relation definitions; and a server responding to queries, relating to the class definitions and the relation definitions in the plurality of the repositories, for the updating the global ontology directory, wherein the updating is based on the authorizing tool, wherein the authoring tool comprises a validator for ensuing that updates made to the plurality of the repositories maintain backward compatibility, so that expressions that are currently valid remain valid after the updates are made, wherein the authoring tool comprises a class editor for editing class definitions in the plurality of the repositories and a relation editor for editing relation definitions in the plurality of repositories, by expanding domains of relations, wherein a subset of attributes of the specific class includes composed functions, wherein at least one class attribute in the subset of attributes is further associated with a view of co-domain of one attribute.

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Claim 2:
2. The system of claim 1 , wherein said authoring tool has capability to browse the plurality of the repositories.