US 12,437,036 B2
Data provenance tracking service
William James Bliss, Bellevue, WA (US)
Assigned to Microsoft Technology Licensing, LLC, Redmond, WA (US)
Filed by Microsoft Technology Licensing, LLC, Redmond, WA (US)
Filed on Nov. 6, 2023, as Appl. No. 18/502,556.
Application 18/502,556 is a continuation of application No. 17/077,935, filed on Oct. 22, 2020, granted, now 11,847,193.
Prior Publication US 2024/0070240 A1, Feb. 29, 2024
This patent is subject to a terminal disclaimer.
Int. Cl. G06F 21/16 (2013.01); G06F 16/22 (2019.01); G06F 16/245 (2019.01); G06F 16/28 (2019.01); G06Q 30/018 (2023.01)
CPC G06F 21/16 (2013.01) [G06F 16/22 (2019.01); G06F 16/245 (2019.01); G06F 16/285 (2019.01); G06Q 30/0185 (2013.01); G06Q 2220/10 (2013.01)] 20 Claims
OG exemplary drawing
 
1. A method for tracking user data shared between a plurality of computing devices, the method comprising:
at a first computing device:
sending a request to a second computing device for a copy of an item of data stored by the second computing device;
receiving from the second computing device the copy of the item of data, the copy including a tracking tag specific to the item of data, the tracking tag including data to determine an identifier of the item of data and a mapping between one or more actions to be performed and one or more events related to the copy of the item of data;
extracting the identifier of the item of data and the mapping included in the tracking tag associated with the copy of the item of data;
determining that a first event has occurred corresponding to the copy of the item of data;
determining a first action corresponding to the first event based upon the tracking tag, the first action comprises communicating with a tracking database identified in the mapping; and
responsive to determining that the first action comprises communication with the tracking database, sending a message to the tracking database corresponding to the event using the extracted identifier of the item of data and information about the tracking database identified in the mapping, the tracking database recording the occurrence of the event as well as an occurrence of a second event corresponding to a second copy of the item of data corresponding to the second computing device.