US Patent 7107518 Automating a document review cycle

An automated review cycle automatically merges changes in a reviewed document into an original document and by provides reviewing tools on a context-sensitive basis. The automated review cycle can operate within the environments of a document management system, a link-based document collaboration system (e.g., common server), or an attachment-based collaboration system. By generating a review cycle identification number (RCID) and by maintaining other information about the review cycle in a configuration file, an original author and a reviewer of a document can be distinguished and can be provided the appropriate prompts and tools to facilitate the document review process.