Pattern? Encapsulating an array in an AngularJS service

I have an AngularJS service that is keeping track of an array of items, which are added and removed through exposed methods by several controllers. Surely, the view should always have the latest data.

At the moment I use the straight-forward solution of exposing the array to the controllers, so that they can directly bind to this array. While it works and seems to be a common solution it leaves me with the feeling that this is far from the cleanest solution possible.

Preferably, I would like to encapsulate the array and simply have the controllers be notified about updates so that they can pull the data when needed avoiding situations where a controller could manipulate the array without using the proper methods.

I was looking for patterns to solve this problem but couldn't find any that would be better than the status-quo. Can anyone pinpoint me to a pattern?

    myapp.service('favoritesService', ['$http', '$q', function(http, q) {

    var favorites = null;
    var self = this;

    this.receiveFavorites = function(forceReload) {
        if(forceReload || favorites === null) {
            return http.get('/user/favorites').then(function (returnData) {
                    favorites = angular.copy(returnData.data.favorites, favorites);
                    return favorites;
                });
        } else {
            var deferred = q.defer();
            deferred.resolve(favorites);
            return deferred.promise;
        }
    };

    this.addFavorite = function(path) {
        if(!path || !path.length)
            return q.reject("No path provided");
        var favId = getIdForPath(path);
        if(favId !== null) {
            var deferred = q.defer();
            deferred.resolve(favId);
            return deferred.promise;
        }
        var name = new Path(path).basename();
        return http.put('/user/favorite.json', 
                        {   path: path,
                            name: name
                        }).then(function(returnData) {
                            return self.receiveFavorites(true);
                        })
    },

    this.removeFavorite = function(path) {
        var favIndex = getIndexForPath(path);
        var favId = favorites[favIndex]._id.toString();
        if(favIndex === null || favId === null)
            return q.reject("Favorite doesn't exist");

        return http.delete('/user/favorites/' + favId).success(function(data) {
            favorites.splice(favIndex, 1);
        });
    };
}]);