FIELD OF THE INVENTION
The invention relates in general to electronic file management and more specifically to a method, apparatus and system for drafting, negotiating, and managing contracts through multiple user terminals for parallel contract authoring. The present invention provides such techniques wherein multiple users have provisions to author the contracts.
BACKGROUND OF THE INVENTION
Contracts are often required in business-to-business transactions. As merely example, contracts are often required during procurement of materials and services. As another example, contracts are often required during sales process. As a result, enhanced techniques for parallel contract authoring are desirable, which can facilitate business functions involving contracts run efficiently.
Individuals, companies, and a variety of organizations enter into and perform legal contracts. Often, the negotiating process leading to an acceptable and executed contract between two or more parties is lengthy and generates a number of contract revisions. Comments are regularly used during negotiation to convey reasons for adding language to or deleting language from a contract, to convey concerns regarding the consequences of portions of the contract and to convey other concerns or issues. The comments may be directed to the parties of the contract, members negotiating on one side of an agreement, or to select members of one or both groups. Conventional methods for tracking, archiving and communicating contract revisions and other information include paper document storage and dissemination as well as digital data storage and transmission. For example, paper copies of contract revisions and executed contracts can be

mailed through the postal service sent using a courier service or directly exchanged between parties of members of a party. Paper copies can be stored in a file cabinet. Other conventional techniques of sharing information regarding contracts include transmission via facsimile and email. Also, contracts and other related documents can be stored in digital form in databases and on digital storage media such as computer hard drives, CDROMS and memory diskettes.
Once a contract has been negotiated and executed, conventional management of contracts and related files is limited in several ways, however. In this regard management of a contract refers not only to maintenance and archiving of documents, but also to supervision of performance required by the contract, and verification of scheduled events. Large organizations often have a large number of executed contracts and contract templates or forms. Management of these and other relevant documents is difficult and results in errors. Original executed documents are typically stored in a file cabinet making it difficult for personnel to quickly determine if a contract exists, who executed the contract, when the contract was executed, the terms of the contract, and whether the terms are different from the preferred form used by the organization. Further, where similar forms or templates exist, conventional contract management techniques often do not provide adequate information indicating what circumstances warrant using one template over another, which provisions in these templates are considered to be negotiable, and what the preferred negotiating strategies are. Moreover, the monitoring and reporting of performance, schedules, and milestones is usually performed using manual means that are separate from the documents that memorialize a contract.
The process of creating, negotiating, and managing contracts is intensely collaborative.

especially as concerns the creation of an initial set of contract documents and the negotiation of the terms, conditions, and language of a contract. Historically, collaboration has been realized by physical proximity-meeting in the same room, using the same filing cabinets and by maintaining multiple, parallel files, with drafts, exhibits, and other related documents. Modern technology which affords parallel multi-user access to meeting, database and version control functions enhances the ability of teams to work collaboratively in the creation and negotiation of contracts.
Although the inventors of present invention in their granted US Patent US8954389 disclosed a system and method of contract authoring it has not addressed the challenge currently faced by the users of contract management software tool that is the parallel review of the same contract document is not possible simultaneously by different reviewers of the same contract document. A contract document might be required to be reviewed by multiple reviewers so when a contract document is entered into the tool after extraction of clauses, all the reviewers cannot work simultaneously on the same document. When one reviewer has accessed that document the other reviewers are required to remain in queue, unless the first reviewer is done with the review and checks out from the contract document then only the second reviewer of the same contract document can access the document for making edits. Thus there is loss of time of the users in completing the review of the document one by one as it takes lot of time.
Thus there exists a need to have system and method of parallel/simultaneous review of the same contact document by multiple reviewers/ users.

OBJECT OF THE INVENTION
The main object of the present invention is to provide a system and method for parallel/simultaneous review of the same contact document by multiple reviewers/ users.
Yef another object of the present invention is to provide a system and method to eliminate the challenges wherein a contract document might be required to be reviewed by multiple reviewers so when a contract document is entered into the tool after extraction of clauses, all the reviewers cannot work simultaneously on the same document.
It is an object of the present invention to provide a system and method which saves the time in review process by multiple users on same document/s.
These and other objects and advantages of the present invention will become apparent from a reading of the following specification and appended claims. There has thus been outlined, rather broadly, the more important features of the invention in order that the detailed description thereof that follows may be better understood, and in order that the present contribution to the art may be better appreciated. There are features of the invention that will be described hereinafter and which will form the subject matter of the claims appended hereto.
DETAILED DESCRIPTION OF THE INVENTION
The detailed description set forth below is intended as a description of various embodiments of the present invention and is not intended to represent the only embodiments in which the present invention may be practiced. Each embodiment described in this disclosure is provided merely as an example or illustration of the present invention, and should not necessarily be construed as

preferred or advantageous over other embodiments. The detailed description includes specific details for the purpose of providing a thorough understanding of the present invention. However, it will be apparent to those skilled in the art that the present invention may be practiced without these specific details.
In accordance to the present embodiment of the present invention, there is provided a system and a method wherein multiple users have provisions to author and review the contract documents.
In a specific embodiment of the present invention, a computer based system for plurality of parallel contract reviewing is provided. The system comprises a processor unit. The system also comprises a computer readable medium storing instructions executable by the processor unit to perform the step of inserting the contract marks in terms of bookmarks for all the extracted clauses of the documents. The tool reads the documents in terms of bookmarks. A bookmark identifies a location or a selection of text that a user name and identify for future reference. For example, a user might use a bookmark to identify text that another user want to revise at a later time. Likewise, for every contract document, the tool automatically places bookmarks so that every section and clause can be identified in terms of different bookmarks.
In an embodiment of the present invention, when a clause is assigned to a reviewer A, the text between the two bookmarks (bookmark before the beginning and after the end of the clause) is tagged by id and referenced to a particular reviewer A which is tagged by the same id, referenced and this is how the tool understands that the said portion is to be sent out to the reviewer A, furtherthe tool creates a new version of the contract document, and the bookmarked portion is highlighted; the rest document is marked non-editable. This entire activity is performed by the

said tool. Thus said document is auto-checked out by said tool and sent to the marked reviewer. Further, when the reviewer A receives the document, he can make changes to the said portion that is highlighted, add or delete text too, and then check the revised document back into the tool. Subsequently, the tool identifies from the user credentials, tagging id and the version document that the reviewer who submitted the response is reviewer A, and the portion bookmarked against him is also identified. Therefore, when the user logs in, his credentials are identified by the tool and along with that, the tool also identifies which portion of the document is assigned to him/her. This is translated through the bookmarked portions assigned to the user. The portion is identified through the bookmarks wherein the said steps are repeated for plurality of multiple tagged reviewers with the plurality of clauses of the contracts.
In yet another embodiment of the present invention said tool merges the changes between the bookmarked texts into the main contract document whose copy was used to create said document. However, the document that is checked in by the user, the content between the bookmarks assigned to him of the existing document is replaced by the content of the new document that he puts into the tool which further helps in creation of a new version of the document with changes of the user incorporated, thus the same bookmarked portion that was assigned to the reviewer A is now replaced by the content of the document checked in by him.

In yet another embodiment of the present invention, wherein the process is repeated for all the reviewers' plurality of documents and thereby said process is completed in a parallel fashion with the tool merging changes into the main document.
The previous description of the disclosed embodiments is provided to enable any person skilled in the art to make or use the present invention. Various modifications to these embodiments will be readily apparent to those skilled in the art, and the generic principles defined herein may be applied to other embodiments without departing from the spirit or scope of the invention. Thus, the present invention is not intended to be limited to the embodiments shown herein but is to be accorded the widest scope consistent with the principles and novel features disclosed herein.
Elements, of different implementations described herein may be combined to form other implementations not specifically set forth above. Other implementations not specifically described, herein are also within the scope of the following claims.

CLAIMS:
1. A computer based system and a method for parallel contract reviewing, the system
comprising:
a processor unit; a computer readable medium storing instructions executable by the processor unit to perform the steps of: extraction of contract clauses and inserting the contract marks in terms of bookmarks for all the extracted clauses of the contract documents;
reading the contract documents in terms of bookmarks whereby said bookmark identifies a location or a selection of text that a user name and identify for future reference; reviewing plurality of contract clauses by plurality of reviewers simultaneously in real time.
2. A system and method as claimed in claim 1, wherein a clause is assigned to a reviewer A,
the text between the two bookmarks (bookmark before the beginning and after the end of
the clause) is tagged by id and referenced to a particular reviewer A which is tagged by
the same id, referenced and this is how the tool understands that the said portion is to be
sent out to the reviewer A.

3. A system and method as claimed in claim 1, wherein creating a new version of the contract document, and the bookmarked portion is highlighted; the rest document is marked non-editable.
4. A system and method as claimed in claim 1 wherein, auto-checking said documents by said tool and sending to the marked reviewer; further, when the reviewer A receives the document, he can make changes to the said portion that is highlighted, add or delete text too, and then check the revised document back into the tool.
5. A system and method as claimed in claim 1, wherein said tool identifies from the user credentials, tagging id and the version document that the reviewer who submitted the response is reviewer A, and the portion bookmarked against him is also identified.
6. A system and method as claimed in claiml, wherein the user logs in with his credentials are identified by the tool and along with that, the tool also identifies which portion of the document is assigned to him/her which is translated through the bookmarked portions assigned to the user wherein said portion is identified through the bookmarks wherein the said steps are repeated for plurality of multiple tagged reviewers with the plurality of clauses of the contracts.
7. A system and method as claimed in claim 1, wherein merging the changes between the bookmarked texts into the main contract document whose copy was used to create said

document wherein said document that is checked in by the user, the content between the bookmarks assigned to him of the existing document is replaced by the content of the new document that he puts into the tool which further helps in creation of a new version of the document with changes of the user incorporated, thus the same bookmarked portion that was assigned to the reviewer A is now replaced by the content of the document checked in by him.
8. A system and method as claimed in claim 1, wherein said process is repeated for all the reviewers' plurality of documents and thereby said process is completed in a parallel fashion with the tool merging changes into the main document.