Jason C Chu

US Patent:

7870480, Jan 11, 2011

Filed:

Mar 14, 2005

Appl. No.:

11/080078

Inventors:

William Oswald - Upper Montclair NJ, US
Jason Chu - Newark CA, US

Assignee:

Actuate Corporation - South San Francisco CA

International Classification:

G06F 17/00

US Classification:

715231, 715230

Abstract:

Methods and apparatus for storing and retrieving annotations accessible by a plurality of reports are disclosed. When an annotation including comments entered by an author is received in association with a data element or field of one of the plurality of reports, the annotation is stored such that it is retrievable using a key. Specifically, the key is composed of both a scope of the annotation and a period end date of the annotation. The scope indicates a subject matter with which the annotation is associated. When annotations associated with a particular data element or field of a report are viewed, the scope of the annotation and the period end date of the data element or field are ascertained. A key composed of the scope and period end date is then used to retrieve the annotation(s) that are pertinent to the data element or field of the report. Specifically, since the reports are related in a hierarchical manner, the scope and period end date of the annotations that are retrieved are those within the scope and period end date of the data element or field of the report.