Systems and methods for freezing the state of digital assets for litigation purposes

1. A method of capturing documents in a distributed computing environment at a central location based on specified criteria, the environment having a central computing device that stores an asset identification tag for at least one digital asset and one or more clients that locally store respective digital assets, the method comprising:

(a) receiving, at a client, an instruction from the central computing device to copy a digital asset, the instruction including an asset identification tag;

(b) creating a copy of the digital asset identified by the asset identification tag, the copy of the digital asset including a copy of metadata associated with the digital asset;

(c) associating an audit trail with the copy of the digital asset, the audit trail included within the copy of the metadata and representative of operations performed on the digital asset; and

(d) transmitting the copy of the digital asset and the associated metadata including the audit trail of the digital asset, to another location;

wherein the other location is the central computing device; and

wherein transmitting the copy of the digital asset and the associated metadata including the audit trail of the digital asset to the other location includes:

sending the copy of the digital asset to the central computing device to prevent subsequent modification of the copy of the digital asset by any of the one or more clients.

2. The method of claim 1 wherein the copy of the digital asset includes an e-mail storage file;

wherein the audit trail, which is included with the associated metadata, contains audit history relating to the e-mail storage file; and

wherein sending the copy of the digital asset to the central computing device to prevent subsequent modification of the copy of the digital asset by any of the one or more clients includes freezing the e-mail storage file at the central computing device and later producing the frozen e-mail storage file from the central computing device in litigation.

3. A system for capturing documents in a distributed computing environment at a central location based on specified criteria, the environment having a central computing device that stores an asset identification tag for at least one digital asset and one or more clients that locally store respective digital assets, the system comprising:

(a) a central computing device in communication with a network; and

(b) a client in communication with a server, the client receiving an instruction from the central computing device to copy a digital asset, the instruction including an asset identification tag and instructions to:

i. create a copy of the digital asset identified by the asset identification tag, the copy of the digital asset including a copy of metadata associated with the digital asset,

ii. associate an audit trail with the copy of the digital asset, the audit trail included within the copy of the metadata and representative of operations performed on the digital asset, and

iii. transmit the copy of the digital asset and the associated metadata including the audit trail of the digital asset, to another location;

wherein the other location is the central computing device; and

wherein the client, when transmitting the copy of the digital asset and the associated metadata including the audit trail of the digital asset to the other location, is constructed and arranged to:

send the copy of the digital asset to the central computing device to prevent subsequent modification of the copy of the digital asset by any of the one or more clients.

4. The system of claim 3 wherein the copy of the digital asset includes an e-mail storage file;

wherein the audit trail, which is included with the associated metadata, contains audit history relating to the e-mail storage file; and

wherein the central computing device is constructed and arranged to freeze the e-mail storage file upon receipt of the digital asset from the client, and later produce the frozen e-mail storage file for litigation purposes.

5. A computer readable medium having instructions executable by a processor to capture documents in a distributed computing environment at a central location based on specified criteria, the environment having a central computing device that stores an asset identification tag for at least one digital asset and one or more clients that locally store respective digital assets, the computer readable medium comprising:

(a) instructions to receive, at a client, an instruction from the central computing device to copy a digital asset, the instruction including an asset identification tag;

(b) instructions to create a copy of the digital asset identified by the asset identification tag, the copy of the digital asset including a copy of metadata associated with the digital asset;

(c) instructions to associate an audit trail with the copy of the digital asset, the audit trail included within the copy of the metadata and representative of operations performed on the digital asset; and

(d) instructions to transmit the copy of the digital asset and the associated metadata including the audit trail of the digital asset to another location;

wherein the other location is the central computing device; and

wherein the instructions to transmit the copy of the digital asset and the associated metadata including the audit trail of the digital asset to the other location include instructions to:

send the copy of the digital asset to the central computing device to prevent subsequent modification of the copy of the digital asset by any of the one or more clients.

6. The computer readable medium of claim 5 wherein the copy of the digital asset includes an e-mail storage file;

wherein the audit trail, which is included with the associated metadata, contains audit history relating to the e-mail storage file; and

wherein the instructions to send the copy of the digital asset to the central computing device to prevent subsequent modification of the copy of the digital asset by any of the one or more clients includes instructions to freeze the e-mail storage file at the central computing device to later produce the frozen e-mail storage file from the central computing device in litigation.

7. A method of capturing documents in a distributed computing environment at a central location based on specified criteria, the environment having a central computing device that stores an asset identification tag for at least one digital asset and one or more clients that locally store respective digital assets, the method comprising:

receiving, at a client, a capture instruction from the central computing device, the capture instruction identifying a particular digital asset among multiple digital assets disposed at the client, the multiple digital assets disposed at the client being associated with respective audit trail histories stored at the client;

transitioning, at the client, each of (i) the particular digital asset and (ii) an audit trail history corresponding to the particular digital asset from a modifiable state to a non-modifiable state;

forming, at the client, (i) a copy of the particular digital asset while the particular digital asset resides in the non-modifiable state and (ii) a copy of the audit trail history corresponding to the particular digital asset while the audit trail history resides in the non-modifiable state;

after the copy of the particular digital asset and the copy of the audit trail are formed, returning each of (i) the particular digital asset and (ii) the audit trail history corresponding to the particular digital asset from the non-modifiable state back to the modifiable state;

associating the copy of the audit trail history with the copy of the particular digital asset using new metadata; and

moving (i) the copy of the audit trail history, (ii) the copy of the particular digital asset, and (iii) the new metadata to a restricted access location to prevent subsequent modification of (i) the copy of the audit trail history, (ii) the copy of the particular digital asset, and (iii) the new metadata by any of the one or more clients;

wherein the particular digital asset includes a document which is modifiable while in the modifiable state;

wherein moving includes storing (i) the copy of the audit trail history, (ii) the copy of the particular digital asset, and (iii) the new metadata to the central computing device in a frozen manner at the central computing device for litigation purposes; and

wherein the method further comprises, after returning each of (i) the particular digital asset and (ii) the audit trail history corresponding to the particular digital asset from the non-modifiable state back to the modifiable state, making modifications to the document and updating the audit trail history based on the modifications to further utilize the document at the client.