CA wins patent for computer backup system

Islandia-based CA Inc. received a U.S. patent Tuesday for a system to back up computer data by identifying which files have been modified and which ones haven’t.

The system uses code called a metadata signature to compare files on a computer with those already backed up. The idea is to streamline the computer backup process by only backing up new or modified files rather than creating entirely new archives every time that can take up storage space. If data is lost, the entire archive can be reconstructed by using a combination of older and newer backups.

The method was invented by Chandra Reddy and Prashant Parikh, according to the patent filing.