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WO2000051051A1 - Centre d'information electronique integre interfournisseur pour achat intelligent - Google Patents

Centre d'information electronique integre interfournisseur pour achat intelligent Download PDF

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Publication number
WO2000051051A1
WO2000051051A1 PCT/US2000/004905 US0004905W WO0051051A1 WO 2000051051 A1 WO2000051051 A1 WO 2000051051A1 US 0004905 W US0004905 W US 0004905W WO 0051051 A1 WO0051051 A1 WO 0051051A1
Authority
WO
WIPO (PCT)
Prior art keywords
recited
organizations
user
clearinghouse
criteria
Prior art date
Legal status (The legal status is an assumption and is not a legal conclusion. Google has not performed a legal analysis and makes no representation as to the accuracy of the status listed.)
Ceased
Application number
PCT/US2000/004905
Other languages
English (en)
Inventor
Selene K. Makarios
Heather L. Downs
Robert C. Fitzwilson
Perry V. Olson
Michael E. Silver
Current Assignee (The listed assignees may be inaccurate. Google has not performed a legal analysis and makes no representation or warranty as to the accuracy of the list.)
PORTOLA GROUP Inc
Original Assignee
PORTOLA GROUP Inc
Priority date (The priority date is an assumption and is not a legal conclusion. Google has not performed a legal analysis and makes no representation as to the accuracy of the date listed.)
Filing date
Publication date
Application filed by PORTOLA GROUP Inc filed Critical PORTOLA GROUP Inc
Priority to AU33795/00A priority Critical patent/AU3379500A/en
Priority to EP00911990A priority patent/EP1129418A1/fr
Publication of WO2000051051A1 publication Critical patent/WO2000051051A1/fr
Anticipated expiration legal-status Critical
Ceased legal-status Critical Current

Links

Classifications

    • G—PHYSICS
    • G06—COMPUTING OR CALCULATING; COUNTING
    • G06Q—INFORMATION AND COMMUNICATION TECHNOLOGY [ICT] SPECIALLY ADAPTED FOR ADMINISTRATIVE, COMMERCIAL, FINANCIAL, MANAGERIAL OR SUPERVISORY PURPOSES; SYSTEMS OR METHODS SPECIALLY ADAPTED FOR ADMINISTRATIVE, COMMERCIAL, FINANCIAL, MANAGERIAL OR SUPERVISORY PURPOSES, NOT OTHERWISE PROVIDED FOR
    • G06Q30/00—Commerce
    • G06Q30/04—Billing or invoicing
    • G—PHYSICS
    • G06—COMPUTING OR CALCULATING; COUNTING
    • G06Q—INFORMATION AND COMMUNICATION TECHNOLOGY [ICT] SPECIALLY ADAPTED FOR ADMINISTRATIVE, COMMERCIAL, FINANCIAL, MANAGERIAL OR SUPERVISORY PURPOSES; SYSTEMS OR METHODS SPECIALLY ADAPTED FOR ADMINISTRATIVE, COMMERCIAL, FINANCIAL, MANAGERIAL OR SUPERVISORY PURPOSES, NOT OTHERWISE PROVIDED FOR
    • G06Q20/00—Payment architectures, schemes or protocols
    • G06Q20/02—Payment architectures, schemes or protocols involving a neutral party, e.g. certification authority, notary or trusted third party [TTP]
    • G—PHYSICS
    • G06—COMPUTING OR CALCULATING; COUNTING
    • G06Q—INFORMATION AND COMMUNICATION TECHNOLOGY [ICT] SPECIALLY ADAPTED FOR ADMINISTRATIVE, COMMERCIAL, FINANCIAL, MANAGERIAL OR SUPERVISORY PURPOSES; SYSTEMS OR METHODS SPECIALLY ADAPTED FOR ADMINISTRATIVE, COMMERCIAL, FINANCIAL, MANAGERIAL OR SUPERVISORY PURPOSES, NOT OTHERWISE PROVIDED FOR
    • G06Q20/00—Payment architectures, schemes or protocols
    • G06Q20/04—Payment circuits
    • G—PHYSICS
    • G06—COMPUTING OR CALCULATING; COUNTING
    • G06Q—INFORMATION AND COMMUNICATION TECHNOLOGY [ICT] SPECIALLY ADAPTED FOR ADMINISTRATIVE, COMMERCIAL, FINANCIAL, MANAGERIAL OR SUPERVISORY PURPOSES; SYSTEMS OR METHODS SPECIALLY ADAPTED FOR ADMINISTRATIVE, COMMERCIAL, FINANCIAL, MANAGERIAL OR SUPERVISORY PURPOSES, NOT OTHERWISE PROVIDED FOR
    • G06Q20/00—Payment architectures, schemes or protocols
    • G06Q20/08—Payment architectures
    • G06Q20/12—Payment architectures specially adapted for electronic shopping systems

Definitions

  • the present invention is generally related to systems for electronic commerce. More specifically, the present invention provides a clearinghouse that allows Internet users to purchase products in a way that automatically reflects the users' individual criteria.
  • Choosing a product can be a difficult and time-consuming task. This is attributable, in part, to the large number of criteria that can be involved in purchase decisions. These criteria typically include factors such as price, product features, quality and brand name. Other factors, more esoteric factors can also play a role. Some consumers, for example, prefer to patronize manufacturers who have good environmental practices (green companies). Consumers may also prefer patronizing manufacturers who have good labor practices. Many other social concerns may also play a role in the decisions made by consumers.
  • An embodiment of the present invention includes an integrated electronic cross-vendor smart-buying clearinghouse. Each consumer who belongs to the clearinghouse uses the clearinghouse to access the Internet and World Wide Web.
  • the personal agent works as an intermediary, or proxy, between the user's web browser and the Internet.
  • the clearinghouse issues a personal agent to each user.
  • Each user's personal agent is a program, application or applet that executes on their computer.
  • the personal agent monitors inbound and outbound communications between the user's web browser and the Internet. By monitoring these communications, the personal agent is able to make inferences about the user.
  • the inferences describe the user's purchasing preferences. In some cases, these preferences are explicit, as in the case where a user has previously purchased the same or a similar product. In other cases, the preferences may be implicit and the user may not even be aware of them.
  • the personal agent also allows users to explicitly designate their own preferences by online form or otherwise.
  • the clearinghouse is configured to continually gather information on vendors, products and services.
  • the source and type of information gathered depends on the particular embodiment. In most cases, however, this information will include third- party product information from a range of different sources.
  • the clearinghouse uses the inferences gathered from the user in combination with the information gathered by other sources to guide the user's choices.
  • the clearinghouse can do this using a range of different mechanism including highlighting preferred selections or eliminating undesired selections.
  • the present invention provides a user-centric forum that allows consumers to shop for and select products and services.
  • the forum is tailored for each user and assists the user in making complex purchasing decisions.
  • Figure 1 is a block diagram of a computer network shown as an exemplary environment for an embodiment of the present invention.
  • Figure 2 is a block diagram of a computer as used in the network of Figure 1.
  • a computer network 100 is shown as a representative environment for an embodiment of the present invention.
  • Computer network 100 is intended to be representative of the complete spectrum of computer network types including Internet and internet-like networks.
  • Computer network 100 includes a number of computers, of which computers 102a through 102f are representative.
  • Computers 102 are intended to be representative of the wide range of large and small computer systems that are used in computer networks of all types.
  • Figure 2 shows a representative implementation for computers 102.
  • each computer 102 includes a processor, or processors 202, and a memory 204.
  • Processor 202 can be selected from a wide range of commercially available or custom types.
  • An input device 206 and an output device 208 are connected to processor 202 and memory 204.
  • Input device 206 and output device 208 represent all types of I/O devices such as disk drives, keyboards, modems, network adapters, printers and displays.
  • Each computer 102 may also includes a disk drive 210 of any suitable disk drive type (equivalently, disk drive 210 may be any non-volatile mass storage system such as "flash" memory).
  • one or more computer systems 102 act as hosts systems for a clearinghouse.
  • the clearinghouse provides a registration or membership option. Consumers, who wish to use the clearinghouse use the registration option to join, register or otherwise affiliate themselves with the clearinghouse.
  • the clearinghouse provides each new member with a personal agent.
  • the personal agent is a program, application or applet that executes on the users' computers.
  • the personal agent is preferably downloaded as part of the registration process. Other delivery options may also be used, including physical delivery of the personal agent software using mail or other method.
  • the personal agent and clearinghouse work together to provide a portal or proxy for the members of the clearinghouse.
  • Each member accesses the Internet and World Wide Web using their browser software.
  • the HTTP communications from the member's browsers pass through their personal agents and are proxied by the clearinghouse.
  • the personal agents monitor the HTTP communications. This allows the personal agents to make inferences about their users.
  • the inferences made by the personal agents relate to the user's web browsing habits and purchasing preferences. In some cases, these preferences are explicit, as in the case where a user has previously purchased the same or a similar product. In other cases, the preferences may be implicit and the user may not even be aware of them.
  • the use of a personal agent to monitor and analyze web-browsing habits is more completely described in a co-pending US Patent Application Serial Number 09/333,810 entitled "Intelligently Augmentable Web Proxy Server with Per-User Customization Capability" filed June 15, 1999. That disclosure is incorporated in this document by reference.
  • a representative architecture for the clearinghouse proxy server is disclosed in the same patent application.
  • the personal agent is preferably configured to provide an interface (typically web-based) that allows the users to explicitly specify their purchasing preferences. This interface provides users with the important ability to reviewed and override the inferences gathered during personal agent operation.
  • the clearinghouse includes a database describing vendors, manufactures, products and services. This database information in the database includes opinions, reviews, test-results, ratings and other assessments.
  • This clearinghouse is preferably configured to provide a number of interfaces for database information input.
  • One of these interfaces is provided for selected third-party consumer organizations (such as consumer organizations). Many of these organizations are accustomed to gathering and cataloging consumer organization. For this reason, it is advantageous to provide such organizations with an interface that allows them to directly input their information into the clearinghouse database.
  • Consumer information can also be assimilated from a number of other sources.
  • Consumer discussion forums such as USENET forums
  • the clearinghouse is configured to provide filtering software that extracts and inputs relevant information automatically. Product and service availabilities are obtained from the various vendors and manufacturers. This information may be manually reviewed and input.
  • the clearinghouse is configured to provide filtering software that extracts and inputs relevant information automatically.
  • the clearinghouse also obtains product attributes (i.e., specific product features and descriptive information) from the various vendors and manufacturers.
  • the clearinghouse uses the attributes to group products and service with like products and services. This grouping allows the clearinghouse to present selections of similar goods and services to users.
  • the use of attributes to group products and services allows these groupings to extend across multiple vendors even where the vendors use different product numbering schemes (as is generally the case).
  • the clearinghouse uses the information in its database in combination with the information gathered by the personal agents to provide a user-centric shopping forum.
  • the shopping forum can be configured to provide true online shopping. Alternatively, the shopping forum can be used as an interface to vendor websites.
  • the clearinghouse compares the information supplied by the user agent to the information included in the clearinghouse database. The clearinghouse uses the results of this comparison to customize the shopping forum for each user. In some cases, this means that the clearinghouse eliminates products, services, vendors and manufactures that conflict with the user's preferences. In other cases, the clearinghouse highlights or otherwise emphasizes products, services, vendors and manufactures that concur with the user's preferences.
  • Other embodiments will be apparent to those skilled in the art from consideration of the specification and practice of the invention disclosed herein. It is intended that the specification and examples be considered as exemplary only, with a true scope of the invention being indicated by the following claims and equivalents.

Landscapes

  • Business, Economics & Management (AREA)
  • Engineering & Computer Science (AREA)
  • Accounting & Taxation (AREA)
  • General Physics & Mathematics (AREA)
  • Strategic Management (AREA)
  • Physics & Mathematics (AREA)
  • General Business, Economics & Management (AREA)
  • Theoretical Computer Science (AREA)
  • Finance (AREA)
  • Development Economics (AREA)
  • Marketing (AREA)
  • Economics (AREA)
  • Computer Security & Cryptography (AREA)
  • Management, Administration, Business Operations System, And Electronic Commerce (AREA)
  • Information Transfer Between Computers (AREA)

Abstract

Cette invention concerne un centre d'information électronique intégré interfournisseur pour achat intelligent. Les consommateurs enregistrent le centre d'information ou y adhèrent. Une fois enregistré, le centre d'information joue le rôle d'intermédiaire entre l'explorateur de réseau de l'utilisateur et Internet. Le processus d'enregistrement comprend le téléchargement d'un agent personnel sur l'ordinateur de l'utilisateur (102a-102f). Cet agent personnel contrôle les télécommunications d'arrivée et de départ établies entre l'explorateur de réseau de l'utilisateur et Internet. En contrôlant ces télécommunications, l'agent personnel peut établir des inférences qui décrivent les préférences d'achat de l'utilisateur. Le centre d'information combine les informations collectées par l'agent personnel et les informations obtenues à partir d'une pluralité de sources décrivant les produits, les services, les fournisseurs et les fabricants. Le centre d'information utilise ces informations combinées pour assister l'utilisateur en sélectionnant ses produits et services préférés.
PCT/US2000/004905 1999-02-26 2000-02-25 Centre d'information electronique integre interfournisseur pour achat intelligent Ceased WO2000051051A1 (fr)

Priority Applications (2)

Application Number Priority Date Filing Date Title
AU33795/00A AU3379500A (en) 1999-02-26 2000-02-25 An integrated electronic cross-vendor smart-buying clearinghouse
EP00911990A EP1129418A1 (fr) 1999-02-26 2000-02-25 Centre d'information electronique integre interfournisseur pour achat intelligent

Applications Claiming Priority (2)

Application Number Priority Date Filing Date Title
US12177699P 1999-02-26 1999-02-26
US60/121,776 1999-02-26

Publications (1)

Publication Number Publication Date
WO2000051051A1 true WO2000051051A1 (fr) 2000-08-31

Family

ID=22398721

Family Applications (1)

Application Number Title Priority Date Filing Date
PCT/US2000/004905 Ceased WO2000051051A1 (fr) 1999-02-26 2000-02-25 Centre d'information electronique integre interfournisseur pour achat intelligent

Country Status (3)

Country Link
EP (1) EP1129418A1 (fr)
AU (1) AU3379500A (fr)
WO (1) WO2000051051A1 (fr)

Cited By (6)

* Cited by examiner, † Cited by third party
Publication number Priority date Publication date Assignee Title
GB2399195A (en) * 2003-03-05 2004-09-08 Hewlett Packard Development Co Method for evaluating website performance
US7107224B1 (en) * 2000-11-03 2006-09-12 Mydecide, Inc. Value driven integrated build-to-buy decision analysis system and method
GB2427043A (en) * 2005-05-26 2006-12-13 Moneyexpert Ltd Online system offering aggregate product and services data with corresponding propensity analysis
US7418410B2 (en) 2005-01-07 2008-08-26 Nicholas Caiafa Methods and apparatus for anonymously requesting bids from a customer specified quantity of local vendors with automatic geographic expansion
US7493277B1 (en) 2002-08-21 2009-02-17 Mydecide Inc. Business opportunity analytics with dependence
US8019638B1 (en) 2002-08-21 2011-09-13 DecisionStreet, Inc. Dynamic construction of business analytics

Citations (9)

* Cited by examiner, † Cited by third party
Publication number Priority date Publication date Assignee Title
US5815657A (en) * 1996-04-26 1998-09-29 Verifone, Inc. System, method and article of manufacture for network electronic authorization utilizing an authorization instrument
US5901228A (en) * 1993-11-04 1999-05-04 Crawford; Christopher M. Commercial online backup service that provides transparent extended storage to remote customers over telecommunications links
US5963924A (en) * 1996-04-26 1999-10-05 Verifone, Inc. System, method and article of manufacture for the use of payment instrument holders and payment instruments in network electronic commerce
US5991740A (en) * 1997-06-10 1999-11-23 Messer; Stephen Dale Data processing system for integrated tracking and management of commerce related activities on a public access network
US6016484A (en) * 1996-04-26 2000-01-18 Verifone, Inc. System, method and article of manufacture for network electronic payment instrument and certification of payment and credit collection utilizing a payment
US6026374A (en) * 1996-05-30 2000-02-15 International Business Machines Corporation System and method for generating trusted descriptions of information products
US6041308A (en) * 1996-09-04 2000-03-21 Priceline.Com Incorporated System and method for motivating submission of conditional purchase offers
US6055513A (en) * 1998-03-11 2000-04-25 Telebuyer, Llc Methods and apparatus for intelligent selection of goods and services in telephonic and electronic commerce
US6064980A (en) * 1998-03-17 2000-05-16 Amazon.Com, Inc. System and methods for collaborative recommendations

Patent Citations (9)

* Cited by examiner, † Cited by third party
Publication number Priority date Publication date Assignee Title
US5901228A (en) * 1993-11-04 1999-05-04 Crawford; Christopher M. Commercial online backup service that provides transparent extended storage to remote customers over telecommunications links
US5815657A (en) * 1996-04-26 1998-09-29 Verifone, Inc. System, method and article of manufacture for network electronic authorization utilizing an authorization instrument
US5963924A (en) * 1996-04-26 1999-10-05 Verifone, Inc. System, method and article of manufacture for the use of payment instrument holders and payment instruments in network electronic commerce
US6016484A (en) * 1996-04-26 2000-01-18 Verifone, Inc. System, method and article of manufacture for network electronic payment instrument and certification of payment and credit collection utilizing a payment
US6026374A (en) * 1996-05-30 2000-02-15 International Business Machines Corporation System and method for generating trusted descriptions of information products
US6041308A (en) * 1996-09-04 2000-03-21 Priceline.Com Incorporated System and method for motivating submission of conditional purchase offers
US5991740A (en) * 1997-06-10 1999-11-23 Messer; Stephen Dale Data processing system for integrated tracking and management of commerce related activities on a public access network
US6055513A (en) * 1998-03-11 2000-04-25 Telebuyer, Llc Methods and apparatus for intelligent selection of goods and services in telephonic and electronic commerce
US6064980A (en) * 1998-03-17 2000-05-16 Amazon.Com, Inc. System and methods for collaborative recommendations

Cited By (8)

* Cited by examiner, † Cited by third party
Publication number Priority date Publication date Assignee Title
US7107224B1 (en) * 2000-11-03 2006-09-12 Mydecide, Inc. Value driven integrated build-to-buy decision analysis system and method
US7797185B2 (en) 2000-11-03 2010-09-14 Mydecide Inc. Value driven integrated build-to-buy decision analysis system and method
US7493277B1 (en) 2002-08-21 2009-02-17 Mydecide Inc. Business opportunity analytics with dependence
US8019638B1 (en) 2002-08-21 2011-09-13 DecisionStreet, Inc. Dynamic construction of business analytics
GB2399195A (en) * 2003-03-05 2004-09-08 Hewlett Packard Development Co Method for evaluating website performance
US8069075B2 (en) 2003-03-05 2011-11-29 Hewlett-Packard Development Company, L.P. Method and system for evaluating performance of a website using a customer segment agent to interact with the website according to a behavior model
US7418410B2 (en) 2005-01-07 2008-08-26 Nicholas Caiafa Methods and apparatus for anonymously requesting bids from a customer specified quantity of local vendors with automatic geographic expansion
GB2427043A (en) * 2005-05-26 2006-12-13 Moneyexpert Ltd Online system offering aggregate product and services data with corresponding propensity analysis

Also Published As

Publication number Publication date
AU3379500A (en) 2000-09-14
EP1129418A1 (fr) 2001-09-05

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