Title: Methods and systems for managing permissions data and/or indexes
Patent application publication number: 20070033191
Publication date: February 8, 2007
Filing date: August 4, 2006 (priority to June 25, 2004)
Link to PDF: 
(117 pages)
AIPW Summary: This application relates to searching and indexing data (i.e., the Spotlight search feature), including file contents and metadata. An index can be partitioned into multiple sub-indexes, based on a variety of criteria. In one embodiment, a user may be permitted to search sub-indexes even if the user does not have permission to access the underlying data. In another embodiment, the user is restricted to searching indexes for which they can access the underlying data. Metadata captured from various application programs can be used to facilitate the searching.
Note: The size of this application is due to the fact that there are 84 pages of drawings.