AUTOMATED PROPAGATION OF DOCUMENT METADATA

An automated method for conditionally propagating metadata instances among documents includes defining groups of metadata instances and includes assigning different propagation coefficients to each group. Each propagation coefficient assigned to a particular group is based upon correlating the associated document attribute or attributes with reliable propagations of metadata instances within the group. After the groups of metadata instances have been defined and the propagation coefficients have been assigned, propagation of a metadata instance from a second document to a first document is based upon a combination of (1) determining the particular group in which the metadata instance resides, (2) identifying the propagation coefficients that are assigned to that group for the associated document attributes, and (3) comparing the first and second documents with respect to the associated document attributes.