27. A computer program product, for use in managing a plurality of attributes in association with a plurality of electronic documents and a plurality of attribute types, stored in connection with at least one computer system, said computer program product comprising: (A) at least one computer readable medium, readable by the at least one computer system; (B) instructions, provided on the at least one computer readable medium, for providing a first data storage having a group of a plurality of documents including at least one document; (C) instructions, provided on the at least one computer readable medium, for accepting, from an input device, a user's selection of a plurality of attributes to be associated with a single pre-determined attribute type for the at least one document, the attribute type having parent and child attribute types, the selected attributes being predetermined and having different parent attributes, attribute types being predetermined and ordered in a predetermined tree-structure hierarchy; and (D) instructions, provided on the at least one computer readable medium, for automatically tagging, responsive to the selection of the attributes, in the first data storage, the documents in the group including the at least one document, with the selected attributes, and with all attributes of all ancestors but not descendants or siblings according to the hierarchy of the selected attributes; and storing, in a second data storage, respective references in association with the selected attributes and the ancestor attributes, for later retrieval of individual documents in the group by searching the ancestor attributes instead of the selected attributes, the respective references uniquely indicating respective individual documents in the first data storage; (E) wherein the at least one document and the at least one other document are representative of at least one of: an invention disclosure document, a patent document, a trademark document, a copyright document, a product description document, a contract document, a license document, a sui generis protection document, a design registration document, a trade secret document, and an opinion document, wherein a document is a data record including a plurality of fields, wherein the attribute and the attribute type is different from the fields in the document and contents of the fields.
27. A computer program product, for use in managing a plurality of attributes in association with a plurality of electronic documents and a plurality of attribute types, stored in connection with at least one computer system, said computer program product comprising: (A) at least one computer readable medium, readable by the at least one computer system; (B) instructions, provided on the at least one computer readable medium, for providing a first data storage having a group of a plurality of documents including at least one document; (C) instructions, provided on the at least one computer readable medium, for accepting, from an input device, a user's selection of a plurality of attributes to be associated with a single pre-determined attribute type for the at least one document, the attribute type having parent and child attribute types, the selected attributes being predetermined and having different parent attributes, attribute types being predetermined and ordered in a predetermined tree-structure hierarchy; and (D) instructions, provided on the at least one computer readable medium, for automatically tagging, responsive to the selection of the attributes, in the first data storage, the documents in the group including the at least one document, with the selected attributes, and with all attributes of all ancestors but not descendants or siblings according to the hierarchy of the selected attributes; and storing, in a second data storage, respective references in association with the selected attributes and the ancestor attributes, for later retrieval of individual documents in the group by searching the ancestor attributes instead of the selected attributes, the respective references uniquely indicating respective individual documents in the first data storage; (E) wherein the at least one document and the at least one other document are representative of at least one of: an invention disclosure document, a patent document, a trademark document, a copyright document, a product description document, a contract document, a license document, a sui generis protection document, a design registration document, a trade secret document, and an opinion document, wherein a document is a data record including a plurality of fields, wherein the attribute and the attribute type is different from the fields in the document and contents of the fields. 29. The computer program product of claim 27 , further comprising instructions, provided on the at least one computer readable medium, for searching the second data storage for documents based on criteria including at least one of the attributes and a corresponding attribute type, using the respective references in the second data storage to locate the documents in the first data storage.