The patent badge is an abbreviated version of the USPTO patent document. The patent badge does contain a link to the full patent document.
The patent badge is an abbreviated version of the USPTO patent document. The patent badge covers the following: Patent number, Date patent was issued, Date patent was filed, Title of the patent, Applicant, Inventor, Assignee, Attorney firm, Primary examiner, Assistant examiner, CPCs, and Abstract. The patent badge does contain a link to the full patent document (in Adobe Acrobat format, aka pdf). To download or print any patent click here.
Patent No.:
Date of Patent:
Mar. 21, 2000
Filed:
Mar. 21, 1997
Weimin Du, San Jose, CA (US);
James W Davis, Sunnyvale, CA (US);
Clemens Pfeifer, Sunnyvale, CA (US);
Ming-Chien Shan, Saratoga, CA (US);
Nicolas Sheard, Palo Alto, CA (US);
Hewlett-Packard Company, Palo Alto, CA (US);
Abstract
A system and method for performing flexible workflow process execution in a distributed workflow management system is described. The distributed workflow management system is formed by a computer network comprising a plurality of computers. Each computer has a processor, memory and input/output facilities. A workflow process management system operates on one or more of the computers to control the computer network in executing the workflow process. The workflow process includes at least one sequence of multiple actions. A plurality of resources is coupled to respective ones of the computers to carry out the multiple actions. A plurality of state machines are stored as computer-operable code in at least one memory and include a plurality of states interconnected by arcs logically forming a directed graph. The workflow management system further includes logic for instantiating each action with one state and logic for executing the logical sequence of the action as state transitions in each state machine.