US Patent 7945615 Distributed shared persistent objects

A system and method are described for managing a shared object in a distributed collaboration environment. The distributed collaboration environment is composed of at least one edge server in communication with a central server. When a client desires to modify the shared object, it issues an object modification request to the edge server it is connected to. The edge server compares the version identifier of the client shared object against the version identifier of the edge shared object. If the versions do not match, the edge server rejects the modification. Otherwise, it will forward the modification request to the central server for further consideration.