International Business Machines Corporation

Manikandan Dharamarajan

Trieu Can Chieu

Thao Ngoc Nguyen

Linh Hue Lam

Thomas Yu-Kiu Kwok

Kakan Roy

Amit Jaysukhial Shah

Amit Jaysukhlal Shah

Access to documents by parties can be controlled as follows. First, access can be controlled in accordance with access counters associated with the parties, where the documents have one or more versions. Second, access can be controlled in accordance with access levels associated with the parties. The access level of each party is one of a first access level, a second access level, a third access level, or a fourth access level. The first, second, third, and fourth access levels are ordered from the first access level to the fourth access level such that the first access level provides a greatest degree of access to the documents and the fourth access level provides a least degree of access to the documents. Third, access can be controlled in accordance with placement of organizations within a hierarchy of organizations, where the parties are organized over the organizations.

Controlling access to documents by parties

Illustrative embodiments disclose a computer process controlling access to one or more documents by one or more parties, the parties organized over one or more organizations. In response to a party associated with a first organization attempting to access documents, determining an access level associated with the party as a first access level, a second access level, a third access level, or a fourth access level. The first, second, third and fourth access levels are ordered from the first access level to the fourth access level such that the first access level provides a greatest degree of access to the documents and the fourth access level provides a least degree of access to the documents. In response to determining the access level associated with the party, permitting the party to access the documents, or preventing the party from accessing the documents, according to the access level associated with the party.

Growing community of inventors

Norwalk, CT, United States of America

Manikandan Dharamarajan