Document Fragment Sharing via Cloud Intermediary
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Solution Overview
Problem
Conventional approaches to incorporating pre-existing content into electronic documents dissociate the content from its source and other documents, leading to inefficiencies and lack of synchronization with evolving content.
Innovation Solution
A facility that uses document fragments, allowing content to be shared and managed across multiple documents with various modes (live, follow, forkable, pinned, special forkable, and special follow) while utilizing a cloud-based service with erasure coding for disaster survivability and versioning to maintain content integrity.
Engineering Contradictions & Design Principles
Engineering Contradiction Analysis
1Stability of the object's composition
If content is copied into a document from another source, then the content can be independently used in the document, but the content fails to reflect subsequent changes in the source
Solution Approach 1:
The patent introduces a cloud-based service as an intermediary that stores the original content and provides it to multiple documents. Instead of copying content directly between documents, the cloud service acts as a mediator that maintains the source content and distributes it to documents that reference it, ensuring all documents reflect updates to the source.
Solution Approach 2:
The patent segments the content management system into separate components: local document storage, cloud-based content storage, and a synchronization mechanism. This segmentation allows documents to reference content independently while maintaining connection to the source through the cloud service.
2Quantity of substance
If content is stored separately from documents, then resource requirements are reduced, but data integrity and security may be compromised
Solution Approach 1:
The patent merges local document storage with cloud-based content storage into a unified system. Documents store references to content locally while the actual content resides in the cloud, combining the space efficiency of centralized storage with the accessibility of distributed reference management.
Solution Approach 2:
The system implements feedback mechanisms where documents continuously check for updates to referenced content in the cloud and automatically refresh when changes are detected, ensuring data integrity without requiring local copies of the content.
3Adaptability or versatility
If content is shared across multiple documents, then usability and flexibility are improved, but complexity of managing content versions increases
Solution Approach 1:
The cloud-based service automatically manages content versioning and distribution without requiring manual intervention. When content is updated in the source document, the system automatically notifies and updates all documents referencing that content, eliminating the need for users to manually track versions.
Solution Approach 2:
The patent creates a universal content management system that handles multiple functions: storage, versioning, distribution, and synchronization across different document types and platforms, reducing complexity by providing a single unified solution rather than separate mechanisms for each function.
Data Source
AI summary
A facility for materializing a document is described. The facility identifies within the document a reference to a document fragment. The facility uses an identifier contained in the identified reference to retrieve document fragment contents stored separately from the document. The facility causes the retrieved document fragment contents to be displayed in context of the document.