System for tracking and displaying changes in a set of related electronic documents

Abstract

This invention discloses a novel system and method for displaying a comparison of a group of related electronic documents in order that changes generated by a comparison of last versions of the group can be automatically displayed and manipulated on a single summary output screen.

1 . A computer system for displaying changes in a plurality of documents, comprising:
 a memory storage device comprised of a data structure that maps references associated with a plurality of related documents stored in the system to a first group reference, where each of said plurality of related documents are comprised of at least a pair of document files, each of the at least a pair of document files being embodiments of a first and second version of the related document;   a comparison module comprised of logic configured to:   receive a command comprised of an input reference;   determining the first group reference using the input reference;   using the first group reference to locate a first and second version of each of the plurality of related documents; and   execute a comparison process to detect changes between each pair of first and second versions for each of the plurality of documents files for each document associated with the first group reference;   store output data representing the detected changes;   an output module comprised of logic configured to generate output data from the output data of the comparison module that when rendered by a computer in combination with a display screen, displays on the display screen a list of the detected changes, where the detected changes associated with each of the plurality of documents are grouped together.   
     
     
         2 - 50 . (canceled)