Data processing: financial, business practice, management, or cost/price determination inventions 07/06

20060167700 - Analysis result providing method and analysis result providing system: An analysis management server 1 makes a large variety of question contents from a question providing unit 4 available, registers a group of questions for analyzing an audience in correspondence with selection of a client terminal 3, obtains replies to the question contents corresponding to the client terminal 3 in...

20060167713 - Automatic transmission for use with a power take-off device, and method of use: An automatic transmission adapted to receive a power take-off device at a rear portion thereof and kit for providing power take-off components. Due to size constraints around an automatic transmission, a rear mounted power take-off device avoids the difficulties common to side mounted power take-offs. The automatic transmission includes a...

20060167714 - Channel-aware enterprise service: Various embodiments of systems, methods, computer programs, services, software components, etc. are provided. One embodiment comprises an enterprise platform for providing banking solutions to financial service providers. Logic embodied in a computer readable medium, the logic implemented on an enterprise platform in a financial service environment, the logic comprising: a...

20060167704 - Computer system and method for business data processing: The system enables business people to understand the impact of business transactions, changes and events in real-time using advanced rules and analytics to filter, categorize and interpret the significance of streams of real-time information. Most business performance analysis today is done manually and this process is a time consuming and...

20060167706 - Design for outsourcing contracts: A method suitable for generating a legal contract between an offeror and an offeree. The method comprises the steps of determining a contractual attribute utility function based on offeror preferences; determining a contractual attribute utility function based on offeree preferences; and generating a legal consideration profile by correlating the attribute...

20060167703 - Dynamic resource allocation platform and method for time related resources: A resource allocation platform for allocating resources between a provider and a plurality of users at a certain price differentiated for different users, the resources being time dependent resources such as communication data capacity, the platform comprising: an agent-based interaction mechanism for allowing said provider and said plurality of users...

20060167701 - Estate group purchasing matching system: In a network where a person who wants to sell an estate is connected to an estate purchase broker so that data communication can be performed, there is provided a database of information on estates to be sold which are provided by a person who wants to sell an estate,...

20060167712 - Franchise arrangement that supports physician provided medical services: A franchise arrangement is provided that supports physician administered medical services. The franchise arrangement include: a franchisor licensed to practice medicine by a government entity; and a franchisee licensed to practice medicine by the same government entity. The franchisee includes at least one practicing physician administering medical services in accordance...

20060167709 - Managing a limited-use electronic mail account: In one aspect, a method related to a limited-use electronic mail account. In addition to the foregoing, other method and system and program product aspects are described in the claims, drawings, and text forming a part of the present application....

20060167715 - Method and a corresponding system for creativity and innovation management: A methods and a corresponding systems for creation, sharing, disseminating, gathering, tracking, developing, archiving, and managing of information regarding: business goals, creative ideas in coherence with specific business goals, and implementations of these creative ideas. The first preferred main step is propagating required goals from predefined decision makers to predefined...

20060167710 - Method and system for registering potential acquirers of assets that are not currently on the market: A register interest system receives from a potential acquirer of assets an indication that the potential acquirer is interested in acquiring rights in a specific asset that is not currently on the market. The register interest system stores indications that the potential acquirers are interested in specific assets. When a...

20060167716 - Method of extracting and reporting death information: A method of extracting and reporting death information includes monitoring reports of death from various sources, and selectively transmitting extracted data to persons who subscribe with a provider of the method. A database is created of persons whose deaths are to be reported to consumers of the information. The consumer...

20060167708 - Method of leasing a gaming machine for a flat fee amount: A method of leasing a gaming machine is provided that includes determining a monetary average machine net win in monetary units per gaming machine per unit of time for a group of existing gaming machines, receiving the leased gaming machine, and determining a monetary payment amount for the leased gaming...

20060167707 - Method of leasing a gaming machine for a percentage of a total coin-in amount: A method of leasing a gaming machine is provided that includes determining a monetary average machine net win in monetary units per gaming machine per unit of time for a group of existing gaming machines, receiving the leased gaming machine, and determining a monetary payment amount for the leased gaming...

20060167702 - Method of preventing theft to vehicles using intensive marking: A method for preventing theft of a vehicle using intensive marking comprises, establishing a service network (10) including a service center (12) having a databank (14) for data processing and storage, and a number of service stations (16) providing anti theft service to clients. At the service stations, an agent...

20060167717 - System and method for listing and finding goods and services over the internet: The present invention provides an improvement over prior art search engine techniques in various ways. In one embodiment, the present invention provides a system and method for enabling searchers to locate content stored on an Internet web site. A user interface is preferably provided that is operable to receive from...

20060167699 - System and method for managing messaging services: Messaging manager is a system that manages the deployment and use of heterogeneous messaging services, controls the said services, and makes reports. It is located between the users and services, so that the messages of the users and services are routed via the messaging manager. When a user sends a...

20060167705 - System for handling refunding of value-added tax: System for handling of refunding of value-added tax to a consumer who has purchased goods in a foreign country includes a central database and first terminals, placed in shops) connected to the system. The first terminals include equipment for entering purchase data. The system creates electronic cheques on the basis...

20060167711 - Systems and methods for generating electronic spare parts catalogs for complex systems and machines: Systems and methods are provided for generating and publishing electronic spare parts catalogs that support electronic business processes for managing and selling spare parts for complex machines and systems, such as gas turbines. Automated systems and methods for generating electronic catalogs of spare parts employ an extensible, template-based framework to...

20060167720 - Incentive programs for healthcare cards: A computer-implemented method to facilitate a purchase by a cardmember using a transaction instrument, comprising: receiving, at a host computer, a request from a provider for payment authorization for a charge to the cardmember using the transaction instrument; determining whether the charge is for a covered healthcare expense; if the...

20060167721 - Methods for patient care using acuity templates: Methods for determining a post-acute level of care for a patient are provided. A template is provided, the template including categories indicating issues relating to a condition, such as a neurological event, a wound injury, or an orthopedic injury. Each category includes several levels, each level representing a severity of...

20060167718 - Methods, systems, and computer program products for providing personalized, just-in-time information services: Exemplary embodiments relate to methods, systems, and computer program products for providing personalized information services. Methods include generating an instance of personalized information including time-sensitive elements, and outputting the personalized information onto a medium that is affixable to a subject with which the personalized information is associated....

20060167719 - Pharmaceutical automation management system and recording medium for recording program data which is necessary for constructing the same and readable in computer: A pharmaceutical automation management system is disclosed. The administrator authentication module authenticates an administrator and registers a login time of the authenticated administrator in a recording medium. The user interface module displays a user interface screen and inputs data through option items which can be selected in the user interface...

20060167724 - Electronic systems and methods for processing health care transactions: Disclosed are embodiments of a computer-based processing system that enables health care providers to sell and order health care products and services from third party vendors for their patients in accordance with federal and state laws. For example, a provider server may initiate an order of a product or may...

20060167723 - Method of treating dependencies: A method and apparatus of treating an addiction is provided. The method includes evaluating the individual to determine the individual's needs. An individual admitted to the program undergoes a supervised treatment protocol that may include education and initial treatment, group therapy, and relapse prevention. There may also be a maintenance...

20060167722 - System and method for adaptive drug delivery: The present invention provides a system and method for determining and maintaining a concentration level of medication in a patient sufficient to achieve and maintain a desired effect on that patient. Generally speaking, in accordance with one embodiment of the invention, a medication delivery controller uses a patient response profile...

20060167725 - Method and apparatus for scheduling: A method and apparatus for scheduling is disclosed. The method may include g a service for which a scheduling strategy is to be applied, selecting the scheduling to be applied to the service selected, selecting an action to be applied to the selected accessing a calendar related to the selected...

20060167727 - Method for the controlling of a logistics chain: According to the method, the current measurements from sensors S1, S2 are transmitted into a Supply Chain Management-application. In this way, the current measurements are always available to the Supply Chain Management-application....

20060167728 - Methods and systems for assessing security risks: The assessment of security risks associated with linear corridors, such as transportation corridors and utilities corridors, is provided. Initially, a site is selected for evaluation. Survey data and context sensitive information, such as demographic information, environmental information, corridor asset information, and the like, is collected for the site. Linear corridors...

20060167726 - Office routine work management system and office routine work management method: A period managing system includes at least a management condition creating unit 1, a management information storing unit 2, a management condition determining unit 3, and a management condition storing unit 4. The period managing system is operated on the basis of period management information stored in the management condition...

20060167731 - Automatically scheduling meetings: Methods, machines, and machine-readable media storing machine-readable instructions for automatically scheduling meetings are described. In one aspect, a meeting request is received. The meeting request specifies a meeting duration, a set of non-fungible resources, and a number of required fungible resources of a specified type. A potential-meeting-time set of timeslots...

20060167733 - Delivery operations information system with performance reports feature and methods of use: The present invention provides a system for managing information related to a delivery service provider and systems of using such a system. The system and systems provided herein allow a delivery service provider to coordinate with efficiency the volume of mail or packages to be delivered with the carrier resources...

20060167734 - Delivery operations information system with route and unit maintenance feature and methods of use: The present invention provides a system for managing information related to a delivery service provider and systems of using such a system. The system and systems provided herein allow a delivery service provider to coordinate with efficiency the volume of mail or packages to be delivered with the carrier resources...

20060167735 - Method and system for customer service process management: A method and system for managing customer service processes for individual customers and populations of customers. In a specific embodiment within the health care field, a clinician creates or updates a draft care plan for a patient using generic or locally-adapted template metadata and tailors the draft care plan to...

20060167732 - Method and system for planning and managing multiple projects on demand with critical chain and replenishment: Disclosed are a method, system and computer program for managing multiple projects. The method comprises the steps of defining a plurality of projects requiring resources, each of said projects having a project manager; and managing said resources with resource buffers and replenishment times. Said replenishment times are incorporated by said...

20060167729 - Method and system for scheduling a customer service callback: A method and system for scheduling a callback time for customer service. The system calculates estimated handling resources for a customer interaction system (14) and forecasts a customer service transaction workload for the estimated handling resources of the customer interaction system (14). The system then determines the scheduled callback time...

20060167730 - System and methods for workflow management: The workflow management system includes various modules that manipulate incoming messages from a variety of clients, translate and route the messages to the appropriate backend applications, monitor completion by the backend applications and provide responses to the clients. A common database is operatively connected to the applications and modules to...

20060167739 - Method and system for operating a personnel workflow tool: The invention includes three primary methodical tools. The first tool implements a job recruiting toolkit. The second tool implements a method of generating referrals based upon a virtual community of people who relate to the job description. The third tool implements an enterprise recruitment toolkit....

20060167737 - Publishing activity tasks in a collaborative environment: A method, system and apparatus for publishing activity tasks in a collaborative environment can include the step of publishing selected activity tasks for status viewing by other collaborators in the collaborative environment. In one aspect of the invention, the publishing step can include the step of publishing selected activity tasks...

20060167736 - Schedule chart for project management: This invention relates to a method of portraying project schedule history in graphical form which facilitates a rapid assessment of the success of a project and its leaders from the standpoint of performance against schedule. More specifically, this invention relates to an “Estimated Time to Completion” chart that is plotted...

20060167738 - System and method for managing workflow: A system and method for managing workflow is provided. The system includes one or more computer devices which execute workflow software to assign tasks to medical staff. The workflow software may be configured to assign tasks to persons on the medical staff based on a set of criteria including a...

20060167742 - Categorizing and analyzing sales of particular products: A system and method for identification and notification of elevated over-the-counter medication sales is disclosed. Localized alerts of elevated sales of specified over-the-counter medications and graphical views of historical sales intensity by medication category are provided. Intervention instructions to manage responses to factors causing the elevation of sales are provided....

20060167741 - System and method for designing a supply chain: A system, method and apparatus are provided for designing and evaluating a supply-chain architecture and strategy, and communicating the architecture to concerned parties. The supply chain is designed by combining business strategies and analytical modeling in a well-defined process. Key product and market attributes are combined with defined supply-chain processes...

20060167740 - System and method for processing objectives: A method, system, and computer program product for processing objectives of an organization. Included is a computerized system having: an objective creation system for defining new objectives and setting associated target values for a defined time period; an objective linking system for linking a set of source objectives to a...

20060167752 - Automated segmentation and yield management: Methods, systems and computer readable media for presenting an offer. In one such method, a consumer is assigned to one of a plurality of market segments, and a yield for a plurality of offers is determined based on the assigned market segment. An offer is then selected for presentation to...

20060167747 - Content-targeted advertising for interactive computer-based applications: The subject invention provides a unique system and method that facilitates providing content-targeted advertising to a user based at least in part on the content of a user action. The user action can be performed in connection with an outbound messaging system, a real-time messaging system such as a chat...

20060167750 - Discount system for installment of trade articles and method for the same: A discount system for installment of trade articles and its method is proposed in the present invention. The discount system provides at least a first trade article and a second trade article. When the second consuming end purchases the second trade article after the first consuming end purchases the first...

20060167753 - Information and promotional offer management and distribution systems and methods: A method for information and promotional offer generation and distribution comprises creating a user profile. A merchant profile is created and an offer profile is created. A request is received from a user for a promotional offer. A promotional offer coupon is created with a unique tracking code based on...

20060167751 - Method and apparatus for distributing music: A music distribution system allows users to freely download music data that has not been put on the market or that has been created by unknown singers or musicians. In this system, which distributes music data to terminal devices via a communications network, a free music distribution Web site for...

20060167746 - Method for cross-promoting communications services: A method to promote use of one communication service by associating it with another service and offering incentives to use the first service in return for use of the second service. Other embodiments are also described and claimed....

20060167745 - Providing low-cost message display boards: Embodiments of the present invention relate to providing low-cost message display boards to users of a message display board service. According to one embodiment of the present invention, display boards capable of displaying a user designated message are supplied by a provider of a message display board service for free...

20060167748 - Public/private campaign management for an internet sales application: The present invention provides a system and method for managing marketing campaigns by sales applications. Sales applications manage campaigns by distinguishing among campaigns for marketing purposes. A customer who is browsing a sales application may be queried for a campaign code. The sales application will then retrieve an indicator of...

20060167744 - Sales promotion point exchange method and system: The sales promotion point exchange transaction method and system of this invention comprises the sales promotion point issuance and consumption server system 200 that issues and consumes sales promotion points per each shop, manufacturer or group of them and consumes sales promotion points within said each shop, manufacturer or group...

20060167743 - System and method for maintaining distributor loyalty: A system, method, and computer software product for use by a manufacturer to offset a loss of one or more of the manufacturer's distributors caused by a displacing a distributor's sale when the manufacturer operates an e-commerce enabled web site that sells products directly to consumers. The distributor is compensated...

20060167749 - Systems and methods for providing advertising in a feed of content: A system and method is described for controlling the provision of advertising presented to an end user in a feed of news content that is delivered from a publisher to an end user, wherein the system comprises: one or more advertisements which each possess a unique identifier that has been...

20060167760 - Automated systems and methods to support electronic business transactions for spare parts: Systems and methods are provided for implementing electronic business applications for managing and selling spare parts, wherein electronic catalogs of spare parts are used to present static and/or real-time spare parts data from disparate backend data sources in a uniform, integrated manner, and wherein business logic programs are provided to...

20060167767 - Countdown pricing process: A countdown pricing method in which products are offered for sale at a displayed price that decreases as time elapses. If a consumer wishes to purchase the product, he or she communicates an offer price to the seller, or the seller's web site acting as the seller's surrogate, which then...

20060167759 - Customer profiling engine: A method and apparatus are provided in a computer network to present marketing and other pertinent information to clients from a host. The client environment is interrogated locally using a profiling engine. A customer class generated by a profiling engine on the customer server controls a URL behind an inquiry...

20060167758 - E-facet optical lens: A method and system design and manufacture of the monogrammed faceted and stone adorned eyeglass lenses via a computer program allowing a design, intricate facet cuts and stone placement on a computer lens model. Software may utilize a touch probe or laser scanner to gather point data from a previously...

20060167761 - Method and apparatus for providing automated network reminders: At least one computer-readable medium encoded with instructions is provided which, when executed by a processor, performs a method including the steps of: receiving a message containing a notification from a vendor that provides a product or service to a customer; and forwarding the notification to a broadband terminal of...

20060167757 - Method and system for automated comparison of items: An automated method and system for providing an item comparison includes identifying a first item and a set of one or more other items for comparison with the first item, prioritizing attributes of the first item and the other items, and providing the item comparison with prioritized attributes to a...

20060167768 - Method and system for facilitating reseller transactions: A computer-implemented method and system is provided which displays lists of products including personalization information and further allows the locking of aspects of personalization information....

20060167765 - Methods of online fund raising over a network: A method for generating a page for charitable fund raising over a network. A user creates a definition for a fund raising event and transfers the definition to a fund raising server, which generates event information (e.g., an event record). The user selects a non-profit organization and transfers the selection...

20060167762 - Multi-supplier transaction and payment programmed processing approach with at least one supplier: In an example embodiment, a computer-based contract-management approach processes transactions involving at least one supplier (i.e., seller or sellers) fulfilling one or more sub-components of the transaction. Each of the suppliers (e.g., as well as other transaction parties) reference the transaction when communicating transaction information such as invoices, regardless of...

20060167756 - Network-based commerce facility offer management methods and systems: Various embodiments include systems, methods, and software to manage offers in a network-based commerce system. One embodiment includes providing sellers an option when listing an item for sale to receive best offers for the item from buyers. This embodiment further includes receiving best offers submitted by offerees via the network-based...

20060167755 - On-line service provision method, and equipment for implementing such a method: The invention relates to the provision of services. According to the invention, a service session supervision platform (10) is disposed between an access network (1) and an input node (12) of a service-hosting network. During the provision of a service, at least one atomic section is first defined, said section...

20060167764 - Process of downloading data: This invention relates to a process for downloading data from Internet onto a data storage support from a downloading terminal, characterized in that said data are downloaded directly by connection of said support on said terminal, located in a public place, the process comprising the exchange of data between at...

20060167763 - Service providing device and service providing method: A service providing device, a service providing method, and a service providing program capable of releasing a functional limit of the service provided by a privilege of another service. When a first service based on the calculation is provided, information on the privilege obtained by using a second service is...

20060167754 - System and method for selecting, ordering and accessing copyrighted information from physical documents: The present invention discloses a system, method and computer program for selecting, ordering, accessing and displaying copyrighted information from physical documents such as printed publications or commercials. The invention allows the management and the direct sale from the editor to the final consumer of electronic information referenced on physical publications...

20060167766 - System for and method of providing a credit to a customer: A method of providing a credit to a customer of a resort or casino for use with goods or services sold by the resort or casino while allowing the customer to retain his privacy concerning the consumption of the particular resort or casino goods or services with which the credit...

20060167769 - Participant node for a searchable distributed information network: Described herein is a technique and apparatus for a computer based market for goods, services, and information with its foundation a multitude of user owned terminals and a network of server computers which creates a relationship between the user of the consumer owned terminal and the owners or operators of...

20060167770 - Tool having an integral system for remotely ordering inventory: A host tool having an integral system for ordering inventory from an inventory order interface has a processing unit, a location provider and a remote connector. The location provider is configured to selectively provide the location of the host tool to the processing unit, while the remote connector is configured...

20060167771 - Financial event software engine: A Software Engine that allows users to record accounting transactions in a double-entry bookkeeping system, without knowing which accounts to debit and credit. Each practical debit/credit combination is summarized by a single Financial Event Type. The potential for thousands of these Financial Event Types is made manageable by the Software...

20060167776 - Affordable for-sale housing program: A method and apparatus for providing and administering an affordable housing program. A property is located for which a developer has received tax credits in exchange for constructing affordable housing units on the property. By machine, information is stored into a database regarding the property. The tax credits held by...

20060167781 - Click based trading with intuitive grid display of market depth and price consolidation: A method and system for reducing the time it takes for a trader to place a trade when electronically trading on an exchange, thus increasing the likelihood that the trader will have orders filled at desirable prices and quantities. The “Mercury” display and trading method of the present invention ensure...

20060167780 - College savings plan account registry and method: A registry of college savings plan accounts includes a central database. The database includes a plurality of registry accounts, and each of the registry accounts includes an account number of a college savings plan account and a name of a prospective student included in the college savings plan account. A...

20060167782 - Credit instrument and system providing multiple services including access to credit services and access to a service provider club: An apparatus and methods for a card that allows a cardholder to set up auto-charge payment of dues and fees to a series of clubs, merchants or service providers. The card also may be used for other transactions that accept credit cards. The apparatus includes a database containing information of...

20060167772 - Electronic interpretation of financials: Disclosed are methods and systems for electronically analyzing primarily financial information of an entity. One method comprises: receiving primarily financial inputs related to an entity; and for at least one predetermined relationship: looking up which at least two variables are linked to the predetermined relationship, determining values of the at...

20060167777 - Method and apparatus for determining investment manager skill: A method of evaluating an investment manager's skill includes determining a time frame including a plurality of time periods of a predefined duration over which to calculate statistics, generating a return distribution for each time period, obtaining return data for a manager for each given time period, standardizing the manager's...

20060167774 - Method for maintaining a customer account: A system to maintain a customer account including an account balance where deposits are made by a depositor calling a telephone number to which the caller incurs a charge to be connected. Other embodiments are also described and claimed....

20060167775 - Method for providing funding of and access to an investment vehicle: A method for providing funding of and access to an investment vehicle, comprises the steps of establishing an investment vehicle, monetizing the investment vehicle by depositing funds therein by at least one predetermined investor, receiving a request for the funds by an employee of an employer, distributing the funds from...

20060167778 - Object-oriented financial modeling: Software technology is used to build and perform object-oriented financial modeling. A software framework creates highly reusable and layered business objects. Business objects organize financial information and save time through ease of use and a simple intuitive interface....

20060167779 - Rate of return stops and capital return transactions: A method and system for managing and selling investments via electronic means. An investor can establish sell order criteria based upon a preset desired rate of return. The broker thereby monitors the investment and automatically sells it on behalf of the investor once the prescribed sell order criteria are met....

20060167773 - Settlement of auctions by determining quantity before price: The orders collected during an auction form an auction pool. The fill for orders in the auction pool is established without setting an auction settlement price (ASP) for the contracts in the auction pool. The ASPs for contracts in the qualified pool are then set based on the fill. Both...

20060167785 - Bidding a price for goods and/or services in an auction of wireless communication access requests within a marketplace: The present invention provides a method and an apparatus for using a bidding strategy to select a bid price for at least one of goods and services in an auction of wireless communication access requests within a marketplace of sellers and buyers to obtain a profit gain in that auction....

20060167784 - Game theoretic prioritization scheme for mobile ad hoc networks permitting hierarchal deference: A method for providing unequal allocation of rights among agents while operating according to fair principles, comprising assigning a hierarchal rank to each agent; providing a synthetic economic value to a first set of agents at the a high level of the hierarchy; allocating portions of the synthetic economic value...

20060167788 - Method and system for broker trading in a hybrid trading system for concurrently trading securities or derivatives through both electronic and open-outcry trading mechanisms: A method of broker trading in an exchange configured for trading securities or derivatives by a combination of electronic and open-outcry trading mechanisms is disclosed. The method includes receiving an order in a public automated routing system workstation, accessing the public automated routing system workstation by a broker with a...

20060167789 - Method and system for providing order routing to a virtual crowd in a hybrid trading system: A method of providing orders to a virtual trading crowd in an exchange prior to automatically linking the order to an away market is disclosed. The method may include receiving a marketable order for a security or derivative at the exchange, wherein the exchange has a price that differs from...

20060167790 - Method and system for transmitting real-time or near real-time price and/or product information to consumers and for facilitating optional fulfillment and optional, automated, real-time or near real-time reverse auctions through wireless or wireline commu: A method for conducting a reverse auction is disclosed. The method includes the steps of (a) receiving, from a potential purchaser using a communications device, a reverse auction request for a product and/or service that contains descriptive information about the product and/or service; (b) conducting a reverse auction by querying...

20060167787 - System and method for an efficient dynamic multi-unit auction: A method and apparatus allow the computer based implementation of an auction of heterogeneous types of items wherein one or more types of the items may include plural items. At any point in the bidding process, the set of feasible assignments of the items, given the bidding state is the...

20060167783 - System and method for deriving data: Best bid and best offer rate data from deals concluded on an anonymous trading system in a fungible instrument such as a foreign currency pair are processed to derive indicative rates. A minimum indicative rates spread between bid and offer prices is defined. The indicative rate bid and offer prices...

20060167786 - System and method for intra-day pricing of mutual funds: A computer-implemented method for facilitating the purchase and sale of shares in an open-ended mutual fund, in a single or plurality of different currencies, during a trading day when assets held by the mutual fund fluctuate in value as the assets trade on one or more exchanges. The trading day...

20060167791 - Multi-party transaction processing system and approach: Transaction management for processing payment-related aspects of transactions is facilitated. According to an example embodiment of the present invention, a transaction management approach involves the automatic processing of payments to multiple parties with payment chains extending through intermediary sellers. In some instances, an intermediary seller contracts with a buyer for...

20060167794 - Bill payment systems and methods using a kiosk: A method of transferring funds includes providing a first kiosk having a negotiable instrument acceptor. The negotiable instrument acceptor is configured to acquire information from a negotiable instrument. The method further includes providing a first kiosk access device to a first customer. Providing the first kiosk access device includes receiving...

20060167795 - Electronic apparatus, charging system and method, charge processing device, storage medium, and prepaid card: An apparatus of the invention comprises an operation inputting element for designating one of a plurality of functions; a function executing element for executing the function designated by the operating inputting element; a measuring element for measuring the time during which each of the functions has been executed by the...

20060167796 - Electronic apparatus, charging system and method, charge processing device, storage medium, and prepaid card: An apparatus of the invention comprises an operation inputting element for designating one of a plurality of functions; a function executing element for executing the function designated by the operating inputting element; a measuring element for measuring the time during which each of the functions has been executed by the...

20060167797 - Electronic apparatus, charging system and method, charge processing device, storage medium, and prepaid card: An apparatus of the invention comprises an operation inputting element for designating one of a plurality of functions; a function executing element for executing the function designated by the operating inputting element; a measuring element for measuring the time during which each of the functions has been executed by the...

20060167792 - Multi-supplier transaction and payment programmed processing system and approach: In an example embodiment, a computer-based contract-management approach processes transactions involving at least one supplier (i.e., seller or sellers) fulfilling one or more sub-components of the transaction. Each of the suppliers (e.g., as well as other transaction parties) reference the transaction when communicating transaction information such as invoices, regardless of...

20060167793 - Systems and methods for processing and providing a payment: Systems and methods are provided for data processing. In one implementation, a data process system is provided that stores open payment items. Each open payment item may be assigned an identifier. The data processing system may also store user authorizations that specify a sub-set of the identifiers. Furthermore, the data...

20060167798 - Currency transfer computerized card: A currency transfer computerized card comprises memory means, including, for example, an electronic microchip, for memorizing data including at least an identification code and at least a currency amount, the card being designed for being purchased at an agreed selling point and to be used for performing purchasing or cash...

20060167799 - Client-server-type security system, such as a security system for use with computer network consumer transactions: A system to provide secure information to a customer or user begins by storing user-defined data associated with a particular user (such as a confidential text string, or image/audio file). The system may then create and provide to the user a communication for the particular user that includes retrieving the...

20060167800 - Limited-life electronic mail account as intermediary: In one aspect, a method includes but is not limited to detecting that a limited-use electronic mail account user has accessed a limited-use electronic mail account; accepting an input commanding the disposition of the item of electronic mail received by the limited-use electronic mail account; and disabling further use of...

20060167803 - Batch loading and self-registration of digital media files: Methods and apparatus for batch loading and self-registration of digital media files is provided. The system provides numerous methods of interfacing with a content outlet. The methods further include comparing attributes of content to be downloaded with attributes of content in a media database. The methods also includes providing restrictions...

20060167802 - Limited-life electronic mail accounts: In one aspect, a method related to a limited-use electronic mail account. In addition to the foregoing, other method and system and program product aspects are described in the claims, drawings, and text forming a part of the present application....

20060167801 - Method and apparatus for client customization by executing software parts on plural servers: A client computer requests plural program parts from various servers. The plural parts are authorized in accordance with usage rights and combined to create a new computer program. The parts can be executed as the new computer program on the servers, on the client, or on both the servers and...

20060167804 - Track listening and playing service for digital media files: Methods, system and apparatus for identifying, tracking and monitoring digital media files through the use of a track listening service is provided. The service may also include a digital media playing service suitable for playing audio, video, audiovideo, and other media format files. The system provides numerous methods of interfacing...

20060167806 - Processing system for recording media content: A method and system are provided in which a user is enabled to record, for example, a song or other radio and/or video content, on demand, and to account for and process appropriate payment for the use of the recorded content. The recorded material is saved and indexed by title...

20060167805 - System and method for providing a service: A system and method is provided for selecting an option for expanding a communication service into a service area. Expansion options are based on a state of the existing network, demographics, and fiber topology. A list is made of available options. Costs for each option are calculated. Expected revenue associated...

20060167807 - Dispute resolution in an open copyright database: Systems, methods and apparatus for resolving disputes regarding digital media files stored in an open copyright database. The invention further includes identifying, tracking and monitoring digital media files is provided. The system provides numerous methods of interfacing with a content outlet. The methods further include comparing attributes of content to...

20060167812 - Communication mechanisms for multi-merchant purchasing environment for downloadable products: A multi-merchant purchasing system is configured to identify downloadable products selected by a user for purchase. The identified downloadable products are offered by multiple merchants. The multi-merchant purchasing system enables the user to purchase all of the downloadable products in a single transaction. Specifically, the multi-merchant purchasing system determines payment...

20060167815 - Digital license and method for obtaining/providing a digital license: An enforcement architecture and method for implementing digital rights management are disclosed. Digital content is distributed from a content server to a computing device of a user and received, and an attempt is made to render the digital content by way of a rendering application. The rendering application invokes a...

20060167814 - Enforcement architecture and method for digital rights management: An enforcement architecture and method for implementing digital rights management are disclosed. Digital content is distributed from a content server to a computing device of a user and received, and an attempt is made to render the digital content by way of a rendering application. The rendering application invokes a...

20060167808 - Flexible digital content licensing: According to the invention, a video system for playing licensed video content is disclosed. The video system includes a video, a video selection interface, a video storage device, and a license control process. The video is selected from a plurality of videos stored on the video storage device. There is...

20060167813 - Managing digital media rights through missing masters lists: Systems, methods and apparatus for identifying, tracking and monitoring digital media files through the use of missing masters lists is provided. The system provides numerous methods of interfacing with a content outlet. The methods further include comparing attributes of content to be downloaded with attributes of content in a media...

20060167816 - Method and apparatus for distributing enforceable property rights: An enforceable property right and a system for controlling the manner of use of an item in accordance with usage rights. The enforceable property right includes an item ticket having a security mechanism incorporated therein and specifying an item for which the item ticket can be redeemed and a license...

20060167810 - Multi-merchant purchasing environment for downloadable products: A multi-merchant purchasing system is configured to identify downloadable products selected by a user for purchase. The identified downloadable products are offered by multiple merchants. The multi-merchant purchasing system enables the user to purchase all of the downloadable products in a single transaction. Specifically, the multi-merchant purchasing system determines payment...

20060167811 - Product locker for multi-merchant purchasing environment for downloadable products: A multi-merchant purchasing system is configured to identify downloadable products selected by a user for purchase. The identified downloadable products are offered by multiple merchants. The multi-merchant purchasing system enables the user to purchase all of the downloadable products in a single transaction. Specifically, the multi-merchant purchasing system determines payment...

20060167817 - Retail transactions involving digital content in a digital rights management (drm) system: A retailer facilitates issuance of a digital license from a licensor to a customer for a corresponding piece of digital content. The retailer receives payment for the license from the customer, where the payment is to be shared with the licensor in a pre-determined manner. The retailer also receives customer-based...

20060167809 - Software assistant for multi-merchant purchasing environment for downloadable products: A multi-merchant purchasing system is configured to identify downloadable products selected by a user for purchase. The identified downloadable products are offered by multiple merchants. The multi-merchant purchasing system enables the user to purchase all of the downloadable products in a single transaction. Specifically, the multi-merchant purchasing system determines payment...

20060167818 - Methods and system for performing data exchanges related to financial transactions over a public network: Methods and systems for exchanging data related to financial transactions utilizing a public network are disclosed. One or more participant computer systems are in communication with the public network. Each participant computer system includes at least one application for performing functions related to a financial transaction, and a gateway providing...

20060167819 - Payment information security for multi-merchant purchasing environment for downloadable products: A multi-merchant purchasing system is configured to identify downloadable products selected by a user for purchase. The identified downloadable products are offered by multiple merchants. The multi-merchant purchasing system enables the user to purchase all of the downloadable products in a single transaction. Specifically, the multi-merchant purchasing system determines payment...

20060167820 - Non-authentication access management system for affiliated websites linked with advertisement: A system for managing non-authentication-based access to at least one affiliated Web site linked with an advertisement is disclosed. A semi-compulsory advertising technique is used to compel the user to view a customized advertisement associated with the affiliated Web site and allow him/her to gain the non-authentication-based access to the...

20060167821 - Electronic settlement system, settlement management device, store device, client device, data storage device, computer program, and storage medium: An effective electronic settlement system in which the number of checks is small. The electronic settlement system includes a data storage device such as an IC card in which value information is stored, a client device provided with an information input/output function to the data storage device, a store device...

20060167822 - Systems and methods for providing change of address services over a network: This disclosure describes systems and methods for collecting and processing change of address data and providing change of address services to a customer using a computer network. The address data can include a physical address, an electronic address, or both. The systems and methods may also provide additional services to...

20060167823 - Secure wireless commerce: Method and apparatus for secure wireless commerce are described....

20060161441 - Application outsourcing: The invention relates to the coordination of application logic and an associated resource. Application logic is received from an application service provider (ASP) and a request is received from a client requesting a service from the ASP. The application logic from the ASP is matched with the client request. The...

20060161449 - Automated real estate data replication: A method of replicating real estate data includes automating synchronization of datastores and validating permissions and membership. The method also includes access methods on the device party to replication allowing access to data when computer networks are of insufficient availability or bandwidth....

20060161445 - Binding a device to a computer: A device, such as a component or a peripheral, and corresponding computer are adapted to be bound such that the device will only operate with that computer after the binding process. Cryptographic messages are sent between the device and computer to confirm the relationship. When the device cannot confirm it...

20060161452 - Computer-implemented methods, processors, and systems for creating a wafer fabrication process: Computer-implemented methods, processors, and systems for creating a wafer fabrication process are provided. One computer-implemented method includes determining individual error budgets for different parameters of the wafer fabrication process based on an overall error budget for the wafer fabrication process and simulated images that illustrate how reticle design data will...

20060161448 - Method and system for rating / ranking third parties: A method of rating a third-party includes, in response to a third-party participating in a transaction concerning a company, monitoring the level of research coverage initiated by the third party concerning the company. A score is assigned to the third-party based, at least in part, upon the level of research...

20060161450 - Method and system for tracking and budgeting energy usage: An energy tracking and reporting system can receive data inputs from multiple sources regarding one or more properties. A central database receives the information and correlates the information for numerous outputs. Information received by the central database can include, for example, property location, property size, property type and property use....

20060161451 - Method for protecting the privacy of phone numbers entered by internet consumers by forwarding calls through intermediary phone numbers: A method is presented for protecting the privacy of phone numbers entered by consumers on the internet by using a third party to assign intermediary phone numbers which can be used by online vendors to make calls that are forwarded to the consumers' actual phone numbers, thereby masking the online...

20060161444 - Methods for standards management: One embodiment is directed to a method of instructing at least one operator in a best practices implementation of a standards facility for managing at least one standard in an information technology (IT) environment comprising a plurality of standards to be managed, the IT environment being managed in accordance with...

20060161447 - Strategic occupancy planning: The present invention relates to a computerized space programming method. In the method five critical phases are utilized to determine the optimal space programming for a business. These phases are (1) validation phase, to get an accurate snapshot of the current space, (2) forecasting phase, interpreting the future, (3) adjacency...

20060161442 - System and method for analyzing or identifying customer requirements: A method or system is provided for analyzing or identifying customer requirements. The identified requirements may be used to design a product family or redesign a process. The product can be, but is not necessarily, a computer program. For the analysis or identification, a master diagram is used in which...

20060161446 - System, method, and computer program product for accessing electronic tickets by paper-based travel service provider: A system, method, and computer program product receive a first request document using a first format at an intermediate location in response to a request by a paper-based travel service provider to access an electronic ticket, convert the first request document to a second request document using a second format,...

20060161443 - Systems and methods for collecting and managing animal-related information: The invention relates to methods and systems for collecting and managing animal-related information. One aspect of an embodiment of the invention includes a method for collecting and managing animal-related data. The method includes logging in a network user, and receiving a selection of an animal management function. The method also...

20060161457 - Adaptive communication methods and systems for facilitating the gathering, distribution and delivery of information related to medical care: Automated methods and systems are disclosed for persistently facilitating the timely gathering, monitoring, distribution and delivery of information related to medical care where such may include: (1) finding a communications channel for effectively attempting a message delivery to a specific target person at a specified time; (2) adaptively finding a...

20060161453 - Authenticating prescriber identity to enable electronically ordering drug samples from a drug sample fulfillment platform: An fully online process to facilitate the fulfillment of drug samples to prescribers is described. With the present invention, a prescriber may order physical drug samples online by undergoing an authentication process that is in lieu of requiring a signature match. In the invention, the ordering of drug samples is...

20060161454 - Doctor express care card: The Doctor's Express Care Card is a health processing method that includes an all inclusive payment and alternative health care delivery system. The providers agree to accept negotiated fees for recognized CPT Codes, (Physicians' Current Procedural Terminology-CPT 2005). This new and unique process is a useful solution to the health...

20060161456 - Doctor performance evaluation tool for consumers: Presenting information to patients—intuitive, statistically significant bucket rankings in more than one score domain—in response to requests for medical providers associated with their choice of medical conditions or treatments, and other restrictions. Statistically significant intuitive bucket rankings (such as “*” to “****”) from relatively limited data on medical providers, and...

20060161458 - Managed care information system: A method for managing the delivery of preventative care services to a membership of a health care plan includes the steps of: providing a membership database having a profile relating to each member of the health care plan, wherein the profile includes at least age, gender, and treatment history; providing...

20060161455 - Method for management of fitness, health and/or wellness specialist services: One aspect of the present invention provides for a process and method of management of fitness, health and/or wellness specialist services based on the time needs and/or wants of an individual. This aspect comprises the steps of creating an account balance of specialist minutes by purchasing a block of specialist...

20060161460 - System and method for a graphical user interface for healthcare data: A system and method for use with a graphical user interface, includes but is not limited to organizing the healthcare data for one or more patients in a graphical user interface, the graphical user interface configured to be altered according to one or more documentation preferences of a user of...

20060161459 - System and method for displaying a health status of hospitalized patients: A system and method for displaying a health status of hospitalized patients. Patient data associated with hospitalized patients is selected according to display rules. A display module selects selected patient data, applies display rules to the selected patient data, and displays the selected patient data. A smart alert module generates...

20060161462 - Method and apparatus for collecting inventory information for insurance purposes: A method and appartus for automatically gathering data about assets of a data center for use in assessing risks in writing insurance policies. The method uses collection servers coupled to the network or networks of the data center. The collection servers are informed of the IP address range and ping...

20060161463 - Method and system for in-process tracking of an operation: A method and system for capturing, monitoring, tracking, displaying, and/or reporting events and discrete information during an operation to enable managers to better understand and manage the in-process activities of the operation. Data derived from events and discrete information from heterogeneous applications is used to populate a central database which...

20060161461 - Systems and methods for long-term health care with immediate and ongoing health care maintenance benefits: Methods and systems related to long-term health care insurance. Long-term health care insurance policies are priced by stratifying potential purchasers according to risk factors which are explored during the underwriting process. In addition to coverage for long-term care, immediate health care benefits are provided to the purchasers in the form...

20060161464 - Method and system for web-based organizational reporting management: A method and system that include a number of functionally and interactively integrated components for assistance with recording services provided to a number of individuals by various organizations. The organizations include, for example, those providing social services, educational assessments, training, job placement, or other services to individuals. In one variation,...

20060161466 - System and method for building business service model: A modeling system has a database that stores information of resources of a computer network service. A server f has a graphical user interface application for creating and editing service models. The application receives user-entered search criteria and searches information in the database based on the criteria. The search criteria...

20060161465 - Systems and methods for optimizing total merchandise profitability: In one such aspect, the invention provides a method for optimizing merchandise profitability that includes the step of modeling gross margin as a function of product breadth and depth for each of at least one class of goods retailed by each of at least one retail site in a group...

20060161468 - System and method for reducing the steps involved in searching for available appointment times and scheduling appointments in a health care environment: A system and method for searching for and scheduling appointments in a health care environment. The present invention is a computerized searching and scheduling system and method for scheduling appointments. The computerized searching and scheduling system and method comprises a plurality of search definitions for defining a plurality of standard...

20060161467 - System and method for strategic budgeting of initial response for managing wildfires: The present invention provides a system and method for strategic budgeting of initial response for managing wildfires. According to the present invention, stochastic-integer-programming-based constrained optimization techniques are employed to develop a strategic budget by optimally allocating disaster management resources to disaster events belonging to scenarios associated with occurrence probabilities. According...

20060161469 - Interactive advisory system: A method for transmitting individualized real-time work assignments to a plurality of employees located remotely from a broadcast network. An analysis unit compares user profiles, dynamic locations stored in the communicator location database, fixed locations, and job assignments entered into the analysis unit. A data set of at least one...

20060161470 - Method and system for creating and maintaining customer tailored marketing plans: A method and system for creating a customer-specific marketing plan includes obtaining customer-specific information in response to a series of queries, weighting the customer-specific information in accordance with a predetermined weighting system, and generating date-specific marketing plan, that includes tools and other aspects....

20060161472 - Method and system for ranking research providers: A method of rating a research provider includes determining, for each of a plurality of research providers that provide equity research within a securities sector, one or more research coverage quantifiers. At least one of the research coverage quantifiers is indicative, at least in part, of the specialization of the...

20060161471 - System and method for multi-dimensional average-weighted banding status and scoring: Method and system for generating summary scores from heterogeneous measures retrieved from multi-dimensional data structures for monitoring organizational performance. Scorecards are created for each group of tree-structured measures branching from Parent nodes to child nodes based on Key Performance Indicators (KPI). Scores for each parent node may be obtained by...

20060161473 - Remote data acquisition, transmission and analysis system including handheld wireless equipment: A remote data acquisition, transmission and analysis system including handheld wireless equipment to obtain operational data and the status of remote machines is disclosed. A plurality of application controllers are interfaced with the remote machines from which operation data is acquired by the application controllers. The application controllers communicate with...

20060161474 - Delivery of targeted offers for move theaters and other retail stores: The invention provides a computer system and methods of use for effecting marketing to customers in movie theater stores and other retail stores including cross-marketing, and marketing based upon aspects of movie showings, and methods of identification and use of transaction data related to the same consumer....

20060161479 - Method and system for providing access rights to a communications network site: A user of a communications network is provided with limited access rights to one or more restricted access communications network sites that are partnered with a base entity, which can have an associated base communications network site, if the user utilizes communications network access capabilities associated with the base entity...

20060161475 - Method for private distribution of printed advertising material: A method for private distribution of printed advertising materials includes the steps of: (a) receiving at a publishing house an order from a customer for direct distribution advertising materials intended for distribution to recipients, (b) creating the advertising materials at the publishing house, (c) repeating steps (a) and (b) for...

20060161477 - System and method for offering multiple products: A system and method for a supplier to offer multiple new products to a first person and multiple pre-owned products to a second person are disclosed. The invention includes a method wherein the supplier receives a request from the first person for a first new product. After accepting the first...

20060161476 - System for acquisition of users: A system for bridging network services, the system including a first server computer providing a first service, a second server computer providing a second service, a bridge server, a first network client computer operative to create a session with the first service via a network and instruct the first service...

20060161478 - System, method and computer program product for currency redemption in loyalty reward programs: A loyalty and redemption system, method and computer program product includes a selectable connection to a loyalty program hosting server site on a distributed communication network from a merchant site on the network. A customer can access the loyalty program hosting server site through the merchant site. At the loyalty...

20060161483 - Gateway service system, device service system, data management server, and home gateway system: Gateway service provider 20 acquires and stores personal data of user 10 and device data of devices owned by user 10 when home gateway 11 is registered. Then, gateway service provider 20 sends such information or services based on the information to customer company 40A and in return receives payment...

20060161481 - Luggage selector: A system and method determine an estimated volume of a user-inputted list of clothing and/or other objects, and use a predetermined selection algorithm for determining at least one article of luggage to be a proposed selection of luggage matching the needs and preferences of the user. The system and method...

20060161482 - Method and system for aggregating real estate information content in an on-line computing environment: An on-line real estate information aggregation system for supporting real estate transactions by aggregating real estate-related information into a central research center. The research center tool enables users to conduct research on specific properties, markets, submarkets or property types within a market, to research and verify the credit worthiness of...

20060161480 - Method and system for aggregating, standardizing and presenting purchase information from shoppers and sellers to facilitate comparison shopping and purchases: A system and a method discloses comparing terms to describe a transaction. In one embodiment, the system and the method include receiving, for a plurality of sellers of a time sensitive fixed capacity non-physical good, a plurality of purchase information describing a transaction associated with each of the plurality of...

20060161484 - Method and system for operating an internet accessible multi-merchant universal compilation of items: The present invention relates to a method and system for operating an internet accessible multi-merchant universal compilation of items, adding items to this compilation and purchasing items there from. The compilation if items can either be a gift registry or a shopping list. The present invention enables addition of product...

20060161490 - .inserting value into customer account at point of sale using a customer account identifier: A method of adding a value to a customer account is provided. A request to add a value to a customer account of a customer is received from a point of sale terminal. The request may comprise value identification data associated with the value and account identification data associated with...

20060161488 - Data confirming system and data confirming method: What is disclosed is a data confirming system comprising: an image reader for reading an image of a manuscript written in a financial sheet, a character reader for transforming said image to a text data corresponding to said image data, a data dividing section for dividing said image and said...

20060161485 - Financial analysis tree software engine: A Software Engine that summarizes the financial state of a business in a single hierarchical tree data structure. The root node of the tree is the balance equation of accounting, its leaf nodes are the ledger accounts of the company, and its internal nodes represent all of the sums required...

20060161486 - Financial services credit program: In the present invention, consumers are issued a credit card that is secured by the consumer's vehicle. This new card will combine all the best features and benefits of a traditional credit card, along with the higher loan amounts of a traditional consumer loan and the ease of origination, funding,...

20060161489 - Method and apparatus for evaluating the concentration of an asset portfolio: Method and apparatus for determining a concentration coefficient for an asset portfolio. The concentration coefficient is determined according to the inverse of the sum of the squares of the weights of each holding in the portfolio, and expresses portfolio concentration as an equivalent number of equal-weighted holdings. In this manner,...

20060161491 - Method and system for advertising on credit cards affiliated with sports leagues: A customer receives a finance card and uses the card to purchase goods and/or services. Based on data compiled from the customer's use of the card the customer is offered an exclusive finance card and offered exclusive products or exclusive services....

20060161487 - Method for establishing lines of credit: A method of assigning a credit limits to individual credit applicants. The method utilizes an algorithm to determine the profitability of a credit account and applies the algorithm to a plurality of credit accounts using a chi squared method to group the accounts into segments. An optimization process is performed...

20060161492 - System, method and computer readable medium containing instructions for evaluating and disseminating investor performance information: An investor's performance is evaluated by utilizing information pertaining to at least one transaction made by the investor, such as an individual or entity, involving at least one investment. This evaluation includes determining a performance score indicative of the investor's performance relative to other investors. The performance score is determined...

20060161493 - System, method and computer readable medium containing instructions for evaluating and disseminating investor performance information: An investor's performance is evaluated by utilizing information pertaining to at least one transaction made by the investor, such as an individual or entity, involving at least one investment. This evaluation includes determining a performance score indicative of the investor's performance relative to other investors. The performance score is determined...

20060161497 - Dynamic account mapping system for computerized asset trading: Methods and apparatuses for processing orders in a computerized asset trading system when the order contains trading requirements for trading accounts that do not map to trading accounts recognized by the provider trading system. The invention books trading requirements associated with the unrecognized trading accounts against a default trading account...

20060161495 - Graphical user interface to facilitate rapid and reliable electronic trading assessment and execution: An electronic trading user interface allows a trader to react to market conditions very quickly in order to give the trader an improved probability of trading at a desired price and volume. The electronic order process is made faster, more efficient, and more reliable. The construction and sending of orders...

20060161498 - Implied market trading system: A computer based trading system implies spread markets from multiple real or implied spread markets. In particular, one aspect of the invention permits implication of a spread market from a combination of inter-commodity and inter-calendar spread orders. Furthermore, another aspect of the invention allows use of nontradeable implied or bridge...

20060161494 - Method for providing aggregation of trading on multiple alternative trading systems: A method for performing financial trading amongst a plurality of alternative trading systems using a common financial computer platform. The method including the steps of receiving at the common financial computer platform a buy-order for a prescribed number shares at a prescribed price. Electronic communication is then established between the...

20060161496 - Money market trading system: A computerized automated trading system that allows users to execute money market transactions wherein the principal trading amount for a proposed money market transaction may be distributed across a plurality of different providers. Customers can make multiple money market deposits (or loans) for different amounts, and can split the total...

20060161499 - Computerized system and method for an automated payment process: A computerized payment system and method is disclosed which provides subscribers with funds based on their income at regular, pre-defined intervals other than those on which they are normally paid. In so doing, it interfaces with the subscriber or with the subscriber and his source of income, and utilizes a...

20060161500 - Method and system for coordinating banking and sports league support: A customer provides funds for a banking process with sports league support. The banking process provides direct and indirect payment of funds to entities in the sports league, including a league sanctioning body, participants, non-league related recipients, owners affiliated with the league and league entities, sponsors affiliated with the league...

20060161501 - Electronic check: An electronic check that is created by a secure electronic transmission which can be printed as a paper check by the payee. The electronic check is created by a software program that makes a digital image of the check, securely encrypts the digital image and transmits the digital image to...

20060161502 - System and method for secure and convenient handling of cryptographic binding state information: A common mechanism that can be used in content encryption applications for binding content to a specific receiver, container or communication channel to separate application specific work from the cryptographic details, regardless of the binding scheme being used. This mechanism includes the definition of a secure binding state object which...

20060161503 - Budget browsing method, system, apparatus, and software product: A method, apparatus, system, and software product are presented for allowing a user to control web browsing costs incurred when using a device such as a mobile device to access the world-wide web. The invention involves selecting a preferred browser strategy from a plurality of browser strategies that correspond to...

20060161504 - Generating an optimized price schedule for a product: Generating a price schedule involves generating a graph (50) having paths that include states (52) with values (54, 56, 58). The graph (50) is generated by determining the values (56, 58) of a successor state (52) from the values (56, 58) of a predecessor state (52). An optimal path is...

20060161505 - System and method for processing multiple mailings: A system and method for processing multiple mailings is provided. In some embodiments, electronic orders are received from mail originators, with each received order specifying the physical delivery of mail-pieces to destinations. A subset of each of the plurality of orders may be combined into a combined electronic order, and...

20060161506 - Method and device for processing graphical information located on surfaces of postal articles: The aim of the invention is to provide a method that enables an examination of postage paid impressions on bulk mailings and/or a billing of charges for bulk mailings, whereby the method, above all, should be suitable for billing specific types of delivery. The inventive method is carried out in...

20060155570 - Aggregation and control of documents in the document repository using meta data and context information and creation of online info binder: The present invention discloses a method and system for electronically aggregating and controlling of documents in a real estate transaction by the assignment of various meta-attributes to the documents when they are uploaded to the system. Based on the attributes, the documents are put into folders having the same attribute-associated...

20060155571 - Automated, multiple order generation to vendors and creation of alerts and reminder using single entry of walkthrough data: The present invention property walkthrough results in a complete survey of the house with all the appropriate vendors contacted for preparing the house for listing. The present invention method and system comprises online/offline walkthrough forms that allow the agent to conduct a walkthrough, which, at the end, automatically results in...

20060155556 - Business method of encouraging participation in an association: The present invention relates to a business method for encouraging participation in an association of competitive entities through exclusive access to a desired product. This method is designed for use in individual industries that are dominated by small scale local businesses. Particular local businesses will be selected and offered an...

20060155557 - Customized one time use vapor deposition source: A method of providing a customized one time use vapor deposition source to a user includes a supplier receiving an order from the user; the supplier providing the one time use vapor deposition source to the user, wherein the one time use vapor deposition source includes at least a boat...

20060155552 - Event handling mechanism: A method and apparatus for an event handling mechanism are described. Under an embodiment of the invention, a method comprises setting a timer for a plurality of time intervals; calling a polling function at the end of each of the plurality of time intervals, the polling function being performed by...

20060155554 - Graphically representing goods management in supply chain: A method of graphically representing management of goods in a supply chain includes receiving goods management data in a computer system from participants in a supply chain, the goods management data being sent upon the participants managing individual goods, and generating a graph in the computer system using the goods...

20060155566 - Internet dating system and method: An Internet dating system and method that systematically documents and stores evaluations by participants of their dating experiences. Each evaluation is then sent, by, for example, email and or SMS, to the other participant in the date. Advantageously, the system processes each evaluation to determine a date rating and prompts...

20060155561 - Mass customization of liquid packets: A method is provided comprising the online design of an insert by a user and the subsequent packaging of the custom insert with liquids. The insert is designed, approved, and ordered by the user through an internet interface that in turn supplies the insert design to an extremely scalable assemblage...

20060155575 - Media delivery prioritization system and method: A network based distribution system and method is disclosed for automatically prioritizing distribution of playable media items, such as movies in a digital format. The system automatically allocates priority based on title supply/demand or subscriber satisfaction criterion to enhance retention of subscribers....

20060155567 - Method and apparatus for facilitating a selection of a postal mailing list: A mailing list test service is disclosed that involves at least one postal mailing list, the at least one postal mailing list including information about a plurality of list members. The service includes sending an e-mail message to each of at least a subset of list members. At least one...

20060155550 - Method and system for automatic storage of business management data: Methods and systems automatically file records concerning business events in a computer system so that the records are accessible to a business application. An identification code is assigned to a business event having a data structure that is represented in the computer system. At least one set of input data,...

20060155564 - Method and system for automatically creating and maintaining business systems using relationships: A method of automatically and intelligently maintaining business systems, including information technology assets. A management system automatically maintains a business system based on relationships among resources within the business system and/or on a priority rank that establishes the value or importance of a particular resource. The management system, and optionally...

20060155573 - Method and system for secure information brokering: Secure information brokering according to the present disclosure provides a technique for a potential tenant seeking to rent or to lease real estate to have their credit and identity information verified by a secure information broker. The secure information broker may then provide the verified information to the property owner...

20060155565 - Method for merchandising a product: A method for merchandising a premium bed support system. The method includes advising various parties in the distribution system for selling a bed support system to a retail consumer as to the benefit of a premium bed support system so that the retail consumer has the opportunity of purchasing the...

20060155563 - Method, system and article for advance lease negotiation in dhcp: DHCP lease negotiation is performed in advance of a specified time when the IP address is needed. The client sends a DHCP discover message with an advance lease option indicating a future time when an IP address is needed. The DHCP server reserves an IP address available at the requested...

20060155572 - Methods and systems for buying, selling and trading intellectual property and other interests: A method of assigning value to intellectual property such as a patent application. First, a starting price for the intellectual property is determined prior to undergoing a prosecution phase. A price modifier is then associated with each of a number of various prosecution factors, with each prosecution factor related to...

20060155551 - Probabilistic pulse generator and differential absolute value computing element and manhattan distance arithmetic unit using this: A stochastic pulse generator (1) of this invention includes a variable signal generator (61) operative to generate a variable signal (Vc) which varies randomly, and a comparator (3) operative to output a binary signal (Vout) of High or Low depending on which of one input signal and another input signal...

20060155574 - Process for obtaining greenhouse gas emission credits: The invention concerns a process for obtaining credits for the emission of greenhouse gases produced by the circulation of a vehicle powered by a heat engine, in which: in a first stage, means are identified that can contribute towards a variation of the greenhouse gas emissions produced due to the...

20060155553 - Risk management methods and systems: Risk management methods and systems are disclosed. Information regarding implicit social contracts affecting an organization is collected from one or more sources which are external to the organization. A reputation risk to the organization is then identified based on the collected information, and an indication of the identified reputation risk...

20060155560 - Semiconductor market development and resource management method: A semiconductor market development and resource management method compriseing collecting at least one client's data regarding a semiconductor industry. The data is collected and a client management database is established. The collected data in the client management database cooperates with at least one assessment condition to analyze and convert the...

20060155569 - Style trend tracking tool: A system and a method are provided for mapping a portfolio of products....

20060155562 - System and method for analyzing and managing business performance: A system and method for analyzing and managing business performance by designing and evaluating the performance of a business process model comprising a flow of business tasks and artifact sources that generate business artifacts. Business processes may be parsed to identify transformation opportunities meeting transformation conditions specified in a transformation...

20060155558 - System and method of managing mentoring relationships: A method is provided and includes receiving a plurality of completed mentor applications. Further, a plurality of completed protégé applications is received. One of the one of the plurality of completed mentor applications can be matched with one of the plurality of completed protégé applications to create a mentoring relationship....

20060155559 - System for examining title to a real estate parcel: The above and other needs are met by a system for examining title to a real estate parcel including software operable on a processing device in electrical communication with a display for viewing information associated with the software. A database of electronic real estate documents is in electrical communication with...

20060155568 - Systems and methods for data processing: Methods and systems are disclosed for managing bundle pricing of services. In one implementation, a system comprises a database for storing master contracts and billing customizing tables. The master contracts refer to the data of the billing customizing tables by means of result and condition attributes. This has the advantage...

20060155555 - Utility computing method and apparatus: A method, system, and computer program product that provide for more uniform pricing of utility computing resources, such as a computing grid. One aspect of the present invention is a method of calculating costs in a utility computing environment comprising receiving a request to process a work unit from a...

20060155576 - Configurable particle system representation for biofeedback applications: A method to increase the ease and effectiveness of biofeedback by dynamically representing physiological indicators on a computer display using a configurable particle system. This particle system consists of a number of similar objects, each object having properties such as location, velocity, lifetime, color, image, transparency, size, and shape, where...

20060155579 - Medical image viewing management and status system: A system identifies, flags and tracks images and series of images previously accessed by a healthcare worker. A system for tracking medical image viewing by a user includes at least one repository storing data representing multiple medical images of a particular patient available for use in preparing a report. A...

20060155578 - Privacy entitlement protocols for secure data exchange, collection, monitoring and/or alerting: Methods, systems and related computer products for providing entitlement controlled levels of collaborative exchange of data using a computer network of Subscribers and Publishers, are configured to: (a) define a set of different privacy levels, each privacy level having associated data sharing parameters that control a participating Publisher's ability to...

20060155577 - System and method for anatomically based processing of medical imaging information: One anatomically based medical information processing procedure involves acquiring one or more medical imaging data sets, and dividing and/or merging particular medical imaging data sets to form one or more anatomically based data sets. An anatomically based data set may comprise medical imaging data corresponding to an anatomical region that...

20060155585 - Image information processing apparatus, image information processing method and medical image information processing system: An object is to provide an image information processing apparatus, an image information processing method and a medical image information processing system wherein, when medical image information is shared by a plurality of hospitals, even patient ID and check ID given freely by each hospital can be registered correctly, and...

20060155583 - Medical apparatus and method for controlling access to medical data: A medical apparatus includes an operator attribute information storing unit, a medical data storing unit, a data authorship information storing unit, and an access control unit. The operator attribute information storing unit stores attribute information of an operator as operator attribute information. The medical data storing unit stores medical data....

20060155582 - Modular microprocessor-based power tool system: A power tool system and method of using the same is provided. The system can include a programmable microprocessor device including at least one input mechanism, and a memory having instructions and/or other information. The system can also include a display; at least one power tool having at least one...

20060155584 - System and method for patient identification, monitoring, tracking, and rescue: A system and method for uniquely identifying each patient, monitoring, tracking and rescue, when admitted to any hospital, nursing home or health care providing facility. The patient identification is done by issue of a Unique Patient Identification Number (PIN). Patient monitoring is done by collection of critical parameters and comparison...

20060155581 - Systems with user selectable data attributes for automated electronic search, identification and publication of relevant data from electronic data records at multiple data sources: Systems, methods and computer program products that allow Subscribers to electronically obtain data of interest from participating Publishers using a computer network which employ an Administrative Server configured to allow Subscribers to electronically define, select and/or request an electronic topic data request with data elements of interest from a plurality...

20060155580 - Vital data vtilization system, method, program and recording medium: In a vital data utilization system (100), (i) measurement systems (110) include a measurement unit (111) for measuring the vital data of subjects, a clock unit for detecting each measurement time at which vital data is measured and a communication unit (112) for sending the vital data including measurement time...

20060155587 - Business methods, design: In compliance with 37CRF 1.72(b) the overall Business Method Design is to equip every vehicle insured, with the most safety factors available to prevent accidents, prevent thefts, and maintain the highest level of maintenance to every vehicle, so that efficiency and emissions always comply to EPA Rules and Regulations. In...

20060155586 - Insurance plan: A list of people committed to donating their own organs, in the event of their own death, to other people on the list of people. A person on the list is a committed organ donor and would receive priority over persons not on the list in receiving an organ transplant...

20060155588 - Insuring a negative non-monetary utility: A computer-based method that includes specifying an arbitrary negative non-monetary utility that will be incurred by a beneficiary of insurance as a result of an uncertain occurrence to be covered by the insurance, using a computer to set a premium for insuring the specified arbitrary negative non-monetary utility, the premium...

20060155590 - Lifestyle protection insurance: An insurance product for protecting a wage earner against a reduction in compensation resulting from an event such as involuntary dismissal from employment or military service activation, and subsequent reemployment at a reduced compensation. An insurance product may elect to recover a vesting percentage of paid premiums or to convert...

20060155589 - Portable vital signs measurement instrument and method of use thereof: The invention is a portable vital signs measurement instrument, systems and methods that provide a variety of measurement capabilities, including blood pressure, temperature, pulse oximetry, and other indications of patient status. The instrument, systems and methods include the ability to communicate wirelessly, for example using Wi-Fi (IEEE 802.11B), with a...

20060155591 - Systems, methods, and media for managing a travel itinerary: Systems, methods and media for managing a travel itinerary of a user are disclosed. More particularly, hardware and/or software for managing the user's travel itinerary based on the location of the user are disclosed. Embodiments may include receiving user location information and estimating the arrival time of the user at...

20060155594 - Adaptive step-by-step process with guided conversation logs for improving the quality of transaction data: The present invention discloses a method and system that can produce high quality documentation for real estate transactions by the preparation of a set of real estate related templates with context help and guided questionaires. The real estate transaction process is first organized into various steps, with each step having...

20060155592 - Method for taking stock and/or monitoring the inventory of stored object and /or merchandise, resource planning system, computer program for a resource planning system, and computer program for a sensor device: To take stock or monitor the inventory of stored objects or merchandise, a storage place or an optically scannable identifier, by which the object or the piece of merchandise can be identified, are assigned to a stored object or piece of merchandise. An electronic image is recorded at a given...

20060155593 - Systems, methods and computer-implemented architectures for performing supply chain planning: Methods, systems and computer-implemented architectures are provided for performing supply chain planning. In one implementation, a system is provided that comprises a database configured to store master data descriptive of supply chain items, a model generator coupled to the database and configured to derive a master data-based core model representative...

20060155595 - Method and apparatus of managing supply chain exceptions: A method of managing supply chain exceptions includes identifying a root cause of an exception in the supply chain, creating at least one checkpoint related to the identified root cause of the exception, creating resolution alternatives to address the root cause of the exception, adding the checkpoint into an enterprise...

20060155596 - Revenue forecasting and sales force management using statistical analysis: The invention is directed to statistically quantifying sales opportunities in order to forecast revenue and generate solution-oriented sales plans. The system includes a database of business opportunities and associated conditions. The database represents a mathematical model, such as a Bayesian model, where the conditions and business opportunities are represented as...

20060155601 - Control of high technology advertising units: A method for distributing advertisement information in an advertisement system having a system server at a system site and a remote unit having a remote display device includes receiving the advertisement information by a cellular network by way of a first cellular modem to provide received advertisement information and transmitting...

20060155598 - Individualized marketing to improve capacity utilization: Suppliers of goods and/or services subject to shifts in capacity utilization design and implement marketing campaigns around utilization forecasts, targeting marketing expenditures on periods of excess capacity rather than periods without excess capacity, and in some embodiments also to alter variables such as pricing, consumer targeting, or even the intensity...

20060155599 - Marketing method for movie theaters: A method for marketing movies allows a consumer to purchase a current box office movie on an optically formatted disc at a movie theater and then to view the movie on the disc away from the movie theater. The method also allows a parent to prescreen a current box office...

20060155603 - Method and system with multi-tier club memberships for discounted buying on the internet and at store locations: This invention relates to a method and system as a branded club product (goods and services) discounting membership, universal discount card technology, hardware infrastructure, operational and software corporate team amalgamation, seller and buyer critical mass, essential implementation and real-time operational approach to integrate internet e-commerce with in-store commerce in physical...

20060155600 - Method of mass marketing for quick service food restaurants through print advertising upon sanitizing wipes packaging: A business method of mass marketing consisting of providing the customers' of quick service food restaurants, who order their food to go, either from a drive-thru, or in a restaurant, a means of sanitizing their hands prior to touching their food. While solving the need of their customers to eat...

20060155602 - Method of promoting fans participating in an event: A method of at least one of promoting, displaying, advertising and expressing interests of fans participating in an event. The method includes enabling each fan to register as a user of a web site for such at least one promoting, displaying, advertising and expressing interests of fans participating in an...

20060155597 - Method, system and apparatus for location based advertising: The invention relates to a method, system and apparatus for managing a small business' advertising. More specifically, the system creates and administers a virtual online world accessible to users (players) within a virtual environment. A player interacts with various elements of the virtual environment and during those interactions the advertising...

20060155604 - System and method for providing online user-assisted creation of magazine and web-based feature articles and advertising, with integrated online user-guided instruction for related marketing and sales activity: A system and method for collecting advertisement and editorial information from an advertiser and/or an editorial source for use by a publisher to create an advertisement and/or editorial article and for providing related marketing information to the advertiser. For advertisers who wish to submit their own completed advertisement, a digital...

20060155606 - Automated computer-implemented method and system for determining tax decisions: An automated computer-implemented method for determining tax decisions is disclosed. The method includes receiving one or more tax registrations for identifying one or more suppliers, receiving one or more purchase orders, receiving an advanced shipping notice based on the one or more purchase orders and generating an invoice with an...

20060155607 - Method and system for the sale of medical items: A system and method for selling medical items. The system comprises one or more vending machines and a service center. The system further comprises a communications network used to allow communication between a communication device located at a vending machine and a communication device located at the service center. An...

20060155609 - Methods and apparatus for anonymously requesting bids from a customer specified quantity of local vendors with automatic geographic expansion: Methods and apparatus to anonymously request bids from a geographically centered plurality of vendors are disclosed. The methods and apparatus enable a plurality of vendors to enter line card information (e.g., part numbers) and geographical information (e.g., zip codes) into a central database via a web page. Customers may then...

20060155605 - Rich media personal selling system: The present invention provides a system and method for providing a sales professional with the ability to create and tailor web-sites comprising rich media content for a potential customer. In this manner a potential customer is presented with a personalised sales message thereby possibly increasing the potential for a sale....

20060155608 - Services for spontaneous collaboration: Methods, systems, and computer programs for servicing and/or providing spontaneous collaboration between a shopper and consultants concerning a shopping goal. Information about the shopper's physical or logical proximity to a particular product category, combined with the current contents of his or her shopping cart is used to determine one or...

20060155611 - System and a method for controlling the quality of business applications: A system and a method for controlling the quality of a set of computerized business applications. The system comprises at least one integrator device (10) suitable for automatically processing at least one type of data item to define at least one user reference table for associating all of the data...

20060155612 - System and method of changing attributes an image-based product: A system and method for changing attributes of an image-based product in which an attribute of a first image is automatically identified and a new value for a product attribute of the image-based product is automatically selected based on the image attribute. Also, a user interface can be provided that...

20060155610 - Transaction portal system: A transaction portal system includes a transaction processing portal that is in network communication with and serves separate and distinct vendors that each have multiple corresponding customers. A transaction client system is associated with each of the multiple customers of each vendor. The transaction client system of each customer is...

20060155613 - Information handling and processing: The present invention relates to the customisation of information viewed by a web user on contacting a site. The invention particularly relates to a method of displaying on a user computer one or more logos, specific to the particular user, on the user computer contacting a website associated with a...

20060155614 - Method and apparatus for selling consumer products using high resolution images: Disclosed are a method and apparatus for collecting information about vehicles. Also disclosed are a method and apparatus for making a market in used vehicles. The method includes collecting image data depicting a vehicle for sale in sufficient detail that visual imperfections are evident in the images when displayed using...

20060155615 - Object placement within computer generated multidimensional environments: A system, apparatus and method for measuring efficacy of an object placed in a virtual multi-dimensional environment are described herein....

20060155617 - Money management education system, apparatus and method: A money management training system for children or young adults providing age-appropriate training in money management skills and concepts in which a proportion of real, non-essential spending for the benefit of the child or young adult is provided to them on a periodic basis for their management and is allocated...

20060155616 - Online reduction in repair and maintenance costs: The present invention provides an automated invoice vetting, negotiation and payment system that automatically collects goods and labors hour data, sets a reasonable pricing structure for each such good and service, dynamically analyzes the price data to adjust for market changes and provides a automatic negotiation and settlement feature for...

20060155618 - Efficient work flow system and method for preparing tax returns: A processor-based method for preparing a tax return using multiple service providers. The method includes receiving at a first service provider an image file that includes a plurality of data values and assigning at the first service provider the image file to a form having a plurality of predefined field...

20060155623 - Agronomy bonus system and method: A method and system for encouraging farmers to sell at least portions of their production through an agricultural cooperative entity, wherein a farmer earns price discounts and/or rebates for purchases from the entity of inputs to his or her production upon sale of such production. The farmer contracts to sale...

20060155630 - Assigning tangible assets to workplaces: A method for assigning tangible assets to workplaces includes receiving input data provided at an input interface, the input data including information about a situation that requires to update a structure of current assignments of specific tangible assets to specific workplaces, selecting, dependent upon the information of the received input...

20060155627 - Financial activity based on natural events: A financial activity network includes a central managing system connected to a plurality of participant terminals. Rules governing operation of the financial activity are stored for future reference. A participant provides investment information such as a map location for the predicted strike by the natural event and, optionally, one or...

20060155628 - Financial activity based on tropical weather events: A financial activity network includes a central managing system connected to a plurality of participant terminals. Rules governing operation of the financial activity are stored for future reference. A participant provides investment information such as a map location for the predicted strike by the natural event and, optionally, one or...

20060155626 - Graphical user interface to facilitate rapid and reliable electronic trading assessment and execution: An electronic trading user interface allows a trader to react to market conditions very quickly in order to give the trader an improved probability of trading at a desired price and volume. The electronic order process is made faster, more efficient, and more reliable. The construction and sending of orders...

20060155619 - Identification system: A card-based identification system includes one or more terminals (40) which can communicate with a database in a server. Each terminal can receive a card and includes computing means which can generate an impersonal card identifier. The terminal includes an input device (20) which can be operated by a user...

20060155624 - Insurance product, risk transfer product, or fidelity bond product for lost income and/or expenses due to jury duty service: An insurance, risk transfer, or fidelity bond product to replace in whole or in part lost income, productivity and/or pay for business, personnel, and personal expenses if a business or professional person, employee or key man or owner, is called to serve on jury duty....

20060155629 - Investment structure: Embodiments of an investment structure that avoids the earnings and ownership dilution related to an acquisition of a target company by a subsidiary company while providing attractive capital treatment are provided herein. In one embodiment, a method for creating an investment structure includes the steps of receiving investment capital from...

20060155620 - License distribution method: A license distribution system and a license distribution method for selling/purchasing a license securely are provided. When a purchase request of a license for viewing digital contents is received via a network from a client terminal, a reception window terminal of a storefront server receives the purchase request of a...

20060155621 - Method and apparatus for modeling and executing deferred award instrument plan: The present invention is directed to the administration of various deferred compensation LTIP and asset account programs that can effectively reduce an individual's income or estate tax by assisting a company in the identification of appropriate employees, and through the use of a novel modeling method and apparatus to implement...

20060155625 - Method for financing of long-term energy acquisition: According to some embodiments, a method includes establishing a special purpose entity in which a first party has made an equity investment. The method further includes establishing a first sales agreement between the special purpose entity and a second party for the special purpose entity to supply a physical commodity...

20060155631 - Point-of-sale investment systems: As a positive alternative to lottery gambling, this invention permits consumers to elect to make small investments through lottery terminals. The investments are preferably made in a stock market based investment such as an Equity Index Annuity. Consumers may make investments anonymously and then consolidate them later into an account...

20060155622 - System and method for enhancing the return of an asset accumulation product: A system and method for allowing an individual to accumulate wealth faster in the event of an adverse personal consequence, such as a death, a disabling accident or a critical illness. The system and method includes issuing an asset accumulation product and an insurance rider that guarantees an increase in...

20060155632 - Automated, user specific tax analysis of investment transactions using a personal tax profile: An automated system provides the specific tax consequences of financial transactions of user, based on the user's particular tax profile. The system allows the user to immediately and easily determine the tax consequences of a transaction prior to execution of the transaction. The user may also determine the tax consequences...

20060155633 - Automatically distributing a bid request for a grid job to multiple grid providers and analyzing responses to select a winning grid provider: A method, system, and program for automatically distributing a bid request for a grid job to multiple grid providers and analyzing responses to select a winning grid provider are provided. A user at a grid client enters at least one bid criteria for a particular grid job intended for submission...

20060155637 - Combined on-site and online auction systems and methods: Auction systems and methods for using such auction systems to sell items and conduct auctions are described. The auction systems contain an online auction system, an on-site auction system, or a combination thereof. The action system contains an item(s) for the auction(s) in a warehouse or other location physically accessible...

20060155635 - Distributed trade match service: Financial instrument trade systems and methods are disclosed. Trade data is processed at a plurality of match servers. Trade data that remains unmatched may be stored in one or more aging queues. Trade data is periodically retrieved from the aging queues and attempts are made to match the unmatched trades....

20060155636 - Method and system for recruiting for employee positions and employees bidding for the same: This method and system provides for an organization to electronically post an open position and for potential candidates to bid on those positions through the use of a “blind bid” system. In addition, the system allows organizations to query a database for potential candidates and directly invite them to bid...

20060155634 - Novel construction contractors bidding system and method: A method for controlling the bidding of construction contracts and subcontracts, and generating competitive quality bids; employing a central manager or contracting specialist, to obtain a list of project contract plans and specifications; identifying a plurality of specialty trade contractors within a region; and distributing the project contract plans and...

20060155638 - System & method for the creation of a global secure computerized electronic market-making exchange for currency yields arbitrage: A multi-participant financial transaction with no downside risks that results in a net profit for all participants when the transaction is accomplished according to certain required steps, including the step of having simultaneously closings in escrow. A multi-step approach to issuing and selling custom-designed, specially engineered and underwritten securities or...

20060155639 - System and method for automated process of deal structuring: A method of automatically generating, based on the preferences of a potential borrower as entered by a third party, multiple alternative loan proposals requested by the third party, are disclosed. The method of automatically generating, based on the preferences of a potential borrower as entered by a third party, multiple...

20060155641 - Prepaid card with multiple depositors: A user is provided with access to funds in an account held an account server computer, the account associated with and accessible via a token. A plurality of unique depositor identifiers is associated with the account, with of the depositor identifiers enabling a depositor to deposit a subset of funds...

20060155640 - Product optimizer: A system and method for defining a custom business process associated with a financial transaction. Defining a business process includes creating one or more forms for exchanging information among a customer, a financial institution, and, optionally, a vendor or other third-party who performs one or more sub-transactions related to the...

20060155642 - Ranking system using instant post-transaction surveying of transaction judges: After a telecommunications interaction apparently concludes between first and second parties to the interaction, an automated means for detecting the termination of the interaction jumps in and presents at least one of the parties with an opportunity to participate in a survey (an instant survey) relating to the just-terminated interaction....

20060155643 - Payment instrument notification: Payment instrument notification is described. In an implementation, a method is described in which a user is notified of impending expiration of a payment instrument that is utilized to interact with a service. The notification is performed such that the user is permitted to interact with the service during a...

20060155644 - Pre-funding system and method: A method for pre-funding is disclosed. The method includes sending a plurality of pre-fund authorization requests to a buyer financial institution, and then receiving a plurality of responses to the pre-fund authorization requests from the buyer financial institution, where each response either accepts or declines a pre-fund authorization request. A...

20060155645 - Image uploading and print-on demand system and method, namely for art and photographs: A computer system and method allowing a user to upload an image representing artwork into the memory of the computer system. Thereafter, after the image is uploaded and approved, the image can be made available for display to other users of the computer system and made available for sale as...

20060155646 - Personal information utilization system and personal information utilization program: The object of the present invention is to improve quality of service for customers by sharing and utilizing personal information on customers among variety of industries. In order to achieve the objective, the present invention comprises a personal information storage means (12), a communication means (8) to an external device...

20060155649 - Information signal reproducing apparatus, information signal outputting apparatus, information signal reproducing method, and information signal outputting method: An information signal reproducing apparatus for reproducing an information signal from a recording medium on which the information signal, including added copy control information is recorded, comprising a first detector for detecting whether the information signal read out from said recording medium is encrypted and for producing an output representative...

20060155647 - Method for distributing information content: A method is disclosed for distributing information content. The content is encoded into a plurality of layers comprising a base layer and an enhancement layer, such that the base layer is needed for reconstructing said information content. The enhancement layer is transmitted by means of superdistribution. Optionally, an accessible sample...

20060155648 - System and method of protecting digital content: A method of operating a personal computer includes steps of determining whether a digital recordation of content that is readable by a hardware device in the personal computer is protected; and responsive to a determination that the digital recordation of content is protected, selectively limiting which software programs are permitted...

20060155651 - Device and method for digital rights management: A digital rights management (DRM) device and method are provided. The DRM device includes a storage module which stores a rights object (RO) having predetermined meta information, a control module which provides meta information of ROs stored in the storage module when an RO detection request is input, and an...

20060155650 - Method and device for consuming rights objects having inheritance structure in environment where the rights objects are distributed over plurality of devices: A digital rights management method and device are provided. To implement the DRM method and device, there is provided a master device including a storage module which stores a plurality of rights objects (ROs) having an inheritance structure, a detection module which detects the storage module for an RO needed...

20060155652 - Expiring encryption: Systems and methods of time dependent encryption are disclosed. The systems and methods are optionally used to facilitate decryption following expiration of a copyright term. An example is provided using the DeCSS decryption algorithm....

20060155653 - Gms sms based authentication system for digital tv: A dynamic authentication system for digital TV, the system comprising a mobile telephone to be operated by an end-user in connection with a digital TV receiver, the mobile phone being adapted for the short message systems SMS, a tamper resistant module, such as a user smart card in the digital...

20060155655 - Costing system and method: A costing system. The costing system includes a costing model and a costing engine. The costing model records parent-child relationships between a plurality of stages of a production line, and at least one valuation type for each stage. The costing engine retrieves a group of valuation type combinations corresponding to...

20060155654 - Editor and method for editing formulae for calculating the price of a service and a system for automatic costing of a service: Electronic editor for formulae for calculating the price of a service designed to define the formula in a format directly readable by an electronic costing system designed to establish the price of a service using information on the service consumed contained in consumption variables. The editor includes an electronic calculator...

20060155656 - Internet based textbook price comparison method using entered course identification: A computer system and method is disclosed where the computer system allows a user to find course materials based off of the user's course schedule and obtain comparative pricing from multiple online vendors for the given course materials. A computer system and method is disclosed where the computer system provides...

20060155657 - Apparatus and method for generating a fee label for a mailing item: The apparatus has a weight sensor for determining the weight of a mailing item, as well as a measuring device for measuring the size of the same. A processing device determines an appropriate fee depending on the weight and size and, where applicable, other parameters, such as destination and type...

20060155658 - Printed postage container having integrated security features: A container having postage printed on the container and having integrated authenticating security features is provided. The container can further include a recipient address field and a sender address field....

20060155659 - Method and system for promoting fan identification with a sports team: A system and method for promoting fan identification with a sports team is provided. The method including the steps of identifying a group of fans of a sports team, selecting a unique identifier corresponding to each of the fans of the group and offering to each fan of the group...

20060149582 - Acting on a subject system: In an active system, an actor is able to effect action in a subject system. The actor and the subject system exist in an environment which can impact the subject system. Neither the actor nor the subject system has any control over the environment. The actor includes a model and...

20060149560 - Business application generation system: Systems and methods are disclosed for generating a business software application. In one embodiment, a business application generation system for automatically generating a business software application is provided. The business application generation system may include a central processing unit, a repository containing a set of meta data, a generation tool,...

20060149563 - Business method for video counseling of relocating students: The invention is of a novel business method for a secure Interactive Counseling Center (ICC) Network providing point-to-point voice, video, data, and document image communication over the Internet in real time. The video counseling system provides a connection between losing and receiving school districts during transitions of military-connected students and...

20060149573 - Computerized system and method for building a system of test components for a healthcare orderable procedure: A computerized system and method of building a system of test components for an orderable healthcare procedure is provided. An orderable healthcare procedure is received and associated with a discrete ontology concept. An ontology is traversed for the discrete ontology concept to identify test components related to the discrete ontology...

20060149585 - Delivery control device, delivery control method and computer product: A device controls delivery of an article from a sender to a receiver. The device retrieves a street address of the receiver based on data pertaining to the receiver. The data is specified by the sender. The device instructs to forward the article to the street address retrieved....

20060149566 - Distributed management service for an auto-identification system: An auto-identification system is described that includes a plurality of distributed auto-id nodes that are operable to track physical objects as they move through an operation of an enterprise, such as, for example, a supply chain network or a sales network. The auto-id nodes are distributed across sites of the...

20060149580 - Fraud risk advisor: A fraudulent business transaction application (FBTA) is provided for monitoring application based fraud. When a consumer supplies account access information in order to carry out an Internet business transaction, the FBTA uses an online fraud mitigation engine to detect phishing trusions and identity theft. Methods are also provided for calculating...

20060149584 - Hangover-mitigating nutritional supplement dispensing system: A system for providing for display/dispensing of a nutritional supplement useful in mitigating the deleterious effects of over-imbibation at a location convenient to guests at an overnight accommodation, and can include providing same in guest rooms and can include providing for adding a cost of use of same to the...

20060149570 - Interacting with consumers to inform, educate, consult, and assist with the purchase and use of personal care products: Educating a consumer about a personal care product. A request for information regarding a personal care product is received from a consumer. A description of one or more physical characteristics associated with the consumer and related to the personal care product is also received from the consumer. In response to...

20060149565 - Local item extraction: A system identifies a document that includes an address and locates business information in the document. The system assigns a confidence score to the business information, where the confidence score relates to a probability that the business information is associated with the address. The system determines whether to associate the...

20060149586 - Lodging attribute inventory: A method of utilizing and inventorying variable attributes for rooms associated with Hotels and other similar services. A database comprising multiple data sets is compiled, where the data sets available may comprise any of the following: room availability; room attributes; attribute weight; and Guest weight. The attribute weight reflects the...

20060149562 - Management system for business invenstment: In a system for managing project investment according to the present invention, a trustee 3 is entrusted with components of the particular project by a project holder 1 having the particular project, an investor 2 invests in the particular project, and the trustee 3 performs investment recovery management using a...

20060149576 - Managing compliance with service level agreements in a grid environment: A computer-implemented method, system, and program for managing compliance with service level agreements in a grid environment are provided. A grid service for managing compliance with service level agreements in a grid environment detects a grid job passing a timing entry point, and flowing towards a grid environment provided by...

20060149583 - Method and apparatus for using software automatically and without user interaction the same way people would use such software: The present invention provides a METHOD AND APPARATUS FOR USING SOFTWARE AUTOMATICALLY AND WITHOUT USER INTERACTION THE SAME WAY PEOPLE WOULD USE SUCH SOFTWARE. This method and apparatus pertains specifically to a method and system for automating the use of software to ensure that data is entered consistently procedures are...

20060149581 - Method and system for aggregating data from various sources and forwarding it to end users: A method and system for aggregating data from various sources that compiles data from public institutions, parses it according to system-defined and user-defined criteria, and transmits it to end users in a time sensitive manner. The data can be violations data, hearing data, and judgment data, and the data is...

20060149569 - Method for transitioning foreign employees: The present invention provides a method for transitioning a foreign national employee from a foreign location to a domestic business location using a web-based employee service center. The method comprises providing a web-based employee service center comprising an information center, a form download center, a frequently asked question center, an...

20060149574 - Method of evaluating business components in an enterprise: A method of evaluating architectural fit of business software applications employed in an enterprise. The method comprises providing a computer tool with a defined rating system for each one of a set of business technology factors and with a set of defined keys having respective key values, inputting into the...

20060149567 - Method, system, and computer program product for dynamic field-level access control in shared documents: A method, system, and computer program product for dynamic field-level access control in shared documents. The method comprises: providing a field in a shared document, wherein the field is not owned by a user and can be edited by any user; and assigning sole ownership of the field to a...

20060149579 - Monitoring method and system: A method, computer program product, and server computer for monitoring at least one paid-for opinion issued by an analyst to determine a paid-for qualitative statistic for the analyst. The paid-for qualitative statistic is indicative of the quality of at least a portion of the at least one paid-for opinion issued...

20060149571 - Multi-channel enterprise communication management framework: Various embodiments of systems, methods, computer programs, etc. for unifying management of customer messages and responses in an enterprise across a plurality of channels are provided. One embodiment is an enterprise system comprising: a plurality of enterprise applications for interacting with customers via a plurality of channels; and a communication...

20060149568 - Multi-perspective business process configuration: A computer-implemented method for configuring a business process includes configuring a solution map and deriving a pre-configured set of collaborative business scenarios based on the solution map. The pre-configured set of collaborative business scenarios is then configured and a pre-configured set of event driven process chains is derived based on...

20060149578 - Paid-for research method and system: A method, computer program product, and server computer for maintaining an information resource that defines a pool of qualified analysts. Each member of the pool of qualified analysts is capable of providing paid-for research concerning a specific company. A user is allowed to contract with a third-party facilitator to have...

20060149575 - Software engineering process monitoring: A computer software engineering process monitoring application for monitoring a project including a software engineering process is disclosed. The computer software engineering process monitoring application comprising, a plurality of software engineering process monitoring program modules. Each module is configured to monitor at least one attribute of the software engineering process...

20060149572 - System and method for asset sharing: The present invention provides for private coordination of the borrowing of items from an aggregate inventory contributed by system participants. A request is received from a system participant. The request is compared with item information associated with a universe of items maintained by the system to determine if a match...

20060149561 - System and method for jackpot wagering: A jackpot wagering system (1) includes a player terminal (3) operable by a player to place a wager on a number of games of chance a random event generator (8) that generates random events upon which outcomes of the games o chance are based, and a determination facility that determines...

20060149577 - System and method for the customized processing of returned merchandise: A system and method for providing macro based returns services that may be customized for particular retailers, customer or items. Forward files may be used to trigger particular actions in the return process. Analytics may be gathered and used to differentiate customers utilizing the returns process in order to optimize...

20060149564 - System and method of doing business for multi-vendor network infrastructure solutions, training, and research and development: Virtual Innovator is a Solutions/Training/R&D Multi-Vendor Laboratory, built for the customers of the Information and Communications Technology industry. A customer can come to Virtual Innovator for Solutions, Training, or R&D for their single or multi-vendor network infrastructures. At Virtual Innovator a customer can resolve the simplest or most complex network...

20060149587 - Automated system and method for processing prescriptions: An automated system and method for processing prescription requests is disclosed, whereby a patient or physician enters a prescription request to an automated pharmacy prescription processing system. For example, a request for a new or refill prescription can be transmitted from a physician's office to the prescription processing system as...

20060149588 - Computerized system and method for documenting patient vital signs during blood product administration and transfusion: A computerized system and method for processing patient vital signs during blood product administration in a computerized healthcare environment is provided. A blood product to be administered to a patient is identified. The patient is identified. Vital signs for the patient are received during blood product administration by a healthcare...

20060149593 - Computerized system and method for managing personnel data in a healthcare environment: The invention relates to a system and method in a computing environment for managing healthcare personnel data elements for at least one healthcare professional. In accordance with one method of the invention, first and second healthcare personnel data elements for a healthcare professional are received from first and second primary...

20060149592 - Computerized system and method for providing personnel data notifications in a healthcare environment: The invention relates to a system and method in a computing environment for providing healthcare personnel data notifications for at least one healthcare professional. In accordance with one method of the invention, a request for notification of the presence of a variance condition for a healthcare professional is received, and...

20060149594 - Health care facility admission control system: A system and method for admitting a patient to a health care facility is disclosed. The method includes the steps of: providing a computer having a memory and a cache storage area; connecting a proximity sensor to said computer; beginning a computer session for the patient; inputting personal data relating...

20060149596 - Method and system for evaluating a physician's economic performance and gainsharing of physician services: The invention relates to a method and system of physician economic performance evaluation in which the relative medical difficulty associated with patients admitted by a particular physician is determined and, given that measurement, judgments made concerning the relative amount of inpatient resources that the physician required. Also, one application of...

20060149598 - Reproduction test service apparatus for medical systems, maintenance support information management apparatus, x-ray ct system, and maintenance service center apparatus: In order to reproduce the past operations of a medical system, a reproduction test service apparatus stores a plurality of past log files directly or indirectly supplied from the medical system in a log file storage unit and reproduces the past operations of the medical system on a pseudo X-ray...

20060149590 - System and method for capture of qualified compliance data at point of clinical care: A system and related techniques generate and maintain a set of compliance-qualified data schemas or templates for deployment in a hospital or other clinical setting. According to conventional implementations, the clinical data required by regulatory reporting bodies such as CMS (Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services), JCAHO (Joint Commission on...

20060149589 - System and method for clinical workforce management interface: A system and related techniques generate and present a clinical workforce management interface to assign nurses, technicians, therapists and others in a hospital or other clinical setting. According to embodiments, the interface may present components including an aggregate patient population profile which lists individual patients in a unit, as well...

20060149597 - System and method for real time viewing of critical patient data on mobile devices: A data processing tool for the viewing of real-time, critical patient data on remote and/or mobile devices. The tool efficiently renders graphical data on the screen of the remote device in a manner that makes it practical for the health care provider to accurately and timely review the data for...

20060149595 - System and method of integrating information related to health care savings accounts and health care plans: A system, method, and software module that integrates a subscriber's health care savings account information with the subscriber's health plan information, and provides the integrated information to the subscriber upon request, and performs a multitude of other functions. The integration software module also performs additional functions such as facilitating transactions...

20060149591 - System and methods for distributed analysis of patient records: A system and associated methods provide healthcare entities with analyzing capabilities for records of a patient population. The analyzing process seeks to find matches between a piece of clinical knowledge introduced to a healthcare entity and data contained in the patient population records. According to one method, a service generates...

20060149602 - Methods and systems for online clinical trial screening: In a clinical trial program screening method, potential clinical trial candidates are driven to a screening website by, for example, banner ads, text messages, or other electronic advertisements. When a respondent clicks the advertisement, a multiple level screening method is conducted to screen qualified candidates for participation in a clinical...

20060149599 - System and method for automatically generating physician orders for urgent care: A system and method are provided for using a caregiver portable computing device for documenting performance of patient-related tasks during an emergency care process. The system includes an emergency interface for regulating communication between a user and the portable caregiver computing device during performance of emergency care processes and a...

20060149601 - System and method for recording medical image data on digital recording media: A system and method for recording medical image data onto a digital recording media. The system and method comprising a medical imaging modality interface for receiving a plurality of video images from a medical imaging modality. A video capturing device is coupled to the medical imaging modality for capturing the...

20060149600 - Transferring image and patient data as a virtual print operation: A method, article of manufacture and apparatus for transferring image data is described. In one embodiment, the method comprises receiving a request to a print data corresponding to an image, displaying a user interface to enable identification of patient information corresponding to the image data, formatting the image data into...

20060149604 - Custom and collaborative risk assessment templates and associated methods of use: The present invention provides generally computerized custom and collaborative risk assessment templates for use in litigation risk assessment and the like. More specifically, the present invention provides computerized custom and collaborative risk assessment templates that present one or more users with a plurality of questions that are used to create...

20060149603 - Method and system for determining healthcare eligibility: A method for determining healthcare insurance coverage eligibility is disclosed. The method includes receiving patient information at a terminal operated by a healthcare provider. An eligibility authorization request message is created, and is sent to an acquirer processor, where the acquirer processor sends the eligibility authorization request message to a...

20060149605 - Exception reduction and event reordering in an item tracking system: A current state of an item being tracked by an item-tracking system may be determined using prior state information about the item. To ensure proper temporal order of the state information, software events triggered by physical events associated with the item are received from a reader at an event interpretation...

20060149607 - Led lighting system: A method for optimizing an LED lighting system cost includes steps of determining LED costs, power source costs, and total costs associated with a plurality of LED quantities, and identifying a lowest total cost as an optimal cost. A LED lighting system includes an LED operated by a constant-current driver...

20060149606 - System and method for agent assisted information retrieval: Online information resources are searched. The system acts an assistant to the user during the search of online resources by pursuing search paths that the user did not recognize, or was unable to pursue due to time or skill limitations. After constructing a preliminary model of the user's information need...

20060149609 - Calendar rule definition, ranking, and expansion: The method may include providing at least one primary calendar, providing a plurality of calendar rules, each of the plurality of rules comprising a rank and a rule-scope. The method may also include providing a representation of the primary calendar and the plurality of calendar rules, and allowing expansion of...

20060149612 - Customer service reporting system: A product service reporting system, method and program product for reporting product problem resolutions. A service code database contains service code records of previously encountered product problem and associated problem solutions. The service code database is sorted based on service code. Problems and associated problem solutions for specific products are...

20060149608 - Method and apparatus for evaluating a proposed solution to a constraint problem: A method of evaluating constraint functions, the evaluation being based at least in part on a control blade movement criteria....

20060149611 - Peer to peer resource negotiation and coordination to satisfy a service level objective: Techniques are provided for allocating resources. Performance metrics for a transaction are received. It is determined whether one or more service level objectives are being violated based on the received performance metrics. In response to determining that the one or more service level objectives are being violated, additional resources are...

20060149610 - Visual representation of sub-intervals of time: The method may include creating a first time span where a time span comprises a start time, an end time and an attribute, creating a second time span; wherein the end time of the first time span and the start time of the second time span are set according to...

20060149613 - Method and system for generating referrals for job positions based upon virtual communities comprised of members relevant to the job positions: The invention includes three primary methodical tools. The first tool implements a job recruiting toolkit. The second tool implements a method of generating referrals based upon a virtual community of people who relate to the job description. The third tool implements an enterprise recruitment toolkit....

20060149614 - Dynamic brand evaluation information processing apparatus and method: A model format storing unit stores a model format representing a cyclic process of brand knowledge creation. Arrangement of dynamic evaluation parameters obtained by factor analysis of several indices for brand-creation process evaluation is set in the model format. A target brand parameter acquiring unit acquires dynamic evaluation parameters for...

20060149615 - Methods and systems to effect comprehensive customer relationship management solutions: A business solution development process having one or more pre-definition stages and one or more post-deployment stages is disclosed. In accordance with one embodiment of the invention, data pertinent to an understanding of a business is analyzed and a future state of the business is envisioned. One or more desired...

20060149616 - Systems and methods for forecasting book demand: Systems and methods for forecasting demand for a test book. One method according to the present invention includes dividing books into a plurality of categories with each of the categories having a unifying concept, developing a demand forecast model for each category by selecting a plurality of variables and, for...

20060149622 - Ad rendering parameters, such as size, style, and/or layout, of online ads: Ad rendering parameters for a set of two or more ads may be determined by (a) accepting, for a set of two or more ads, ad information which includes at least one ad feature having a value that depends on ad rendering parameters, and (b) determining ad rendering parameters for...

20060149623 - Advertisement approval: An advertisement for use with an online ad serving system may be automatically checked for compliance with one or more policies of the online ad serving system. If the advertisement is approved, then it is allowed by be served by the ad serving system. Follow up checks of the advertisement...

20060149631 - Broadcasting an effective advertisement based on customers: The present invention relates to a method of optimizing advertising in response to customer data. One embodiment of the present invention relates to a method of acquiring data about the advertising preferences of particular groups of customers. For example, this data may include analyzing the shopping response of all married...

20060149617 - Content information processing system and method: A mechanism whereby a user can obtain a desired content via a communication network and a content distributor loses no profits. Identification information of each theater and each video content screened at the theater are registered. When a video content viewing request from a member is accepted, the theater which...

20060149627 - Electronic discount and rebate coupon system: A system that allows multiple discount and other coupon issuers to create and issuer electronic coupons to recipients on a single coupon card the recipient has. The coupon recipients benefit by not having to carry around one card for each coupon issuer, in addition, the recipient can access one coupon...

20060149624 - Generating and/or serving local area advertisements, such as advertisements for devices with call functionality: Sets of local, (e.g., online) ads may be generated by obtaining sets of information about (e.g., local) establishments, each set including a business address information and/or a telephone number, (b) determining, for each of the sets, a location using at least one of at least a portion of the business...

20060149626 - Integration of wic items and transactions into personal shopping devices: A method, system and computer program product for providing access to government benefits is disclosed. The method comprises positioning a short-range transmitter in a predetermined product area in a store, and storing one or more marketing messages in the short-range transmitter, wherein the one or more marketing messages are associated...

20060149628 - Method and system for implementing a customer incentive program: A system and method for implementing a customer incentive program that conditionally rewards a customer based upon the customer's movement through a shopping area and/or responses to questions which refer to the shopping area, sections of the shopping area and/or products located in the shopping area. While moving through a...

20060149619 - Method and system for incentivizing vehicle acquisition: A method for incentivizing acquisition of a vehicle including offering a non-cash incentive currency having a conversion component and a redemption component. The conversion component is convertible into a cash incentive and the redemption component is redeemable for a non-cash incentive offering....

20060149621 - Method to provide tactile or audio feedback in a personal shopping device: A method, system and computer program product for system for drawing consumer attention to selectively broadcast marketing messages, such as advertisements, store events, and coupons, to a wireless computer mounted on a shopping cart in a store is disclosed. The method comprises positioning a short-range transmitter in a predetermined product...

20060149620 - On-line fundraising method, system, and computer useable medium: An on-line fundraising method, system, and/or computer useable medium provides a fundraising website, fundraising software, and a fundraising database for a fundraiser. Fundraiser organizations are associated with a fundraising website as fundraiser associates. Retail partners are affiliated with the fundraising website. Users are referred to the fundraising website by a...

20060149630 - Opt-in delivery of advertisements on mobile devices: Advertisements provided to a mobile device user allow the user to obtain information from advertisers without revealing the user's identity. Advertisers supply advertisements to an advertising intermediary, which maintains the advertisements in a database, and also maintains a database of mobile device users who are subscribers to its service. Separately,...

20060149632 - Providing network-based in-store media broadcasting: The present invention features a network-based in-store media broadcasting system comprising one or more, and preferably, a plurality of client player devices placed at a plurality of business locations, each of the client player devices being independently supported and in communication with the internal audio/visual system installed in the business...

20060149625 - Suggesting and/or providing targeting information for advertisements: The relevancy of ads may be increased, and opportunities to serve an ad that might otherwise be missed may be exploited by (i) accepting broad targeting information, to be used for serving an ad, from an advertiser, (ii) serving the ad using the broad targeting information, (iii) logging search query...

20060149633 - System and method for advertising with an internet voice portal: A method of advertising includes maintaining an Internet-related communication session between a user and a portal and, during the communication session, selectively providing advertisements based on any one of user constraints, sales criteria, and context....

20060149629 - System and method for promoting product sales: A system and method for promoting product sales are proposed and applicable to data processing devices, characterized in the use of a computing mechanism for calculating the unit profit of a main product according to sales-related information of the main product and a promotional product thereof; a judging mechanism for...

20060149618 - System for providing private offers to customers of web sites: A method for creating private offers including parsing at least a first computer-based document to identify at least one offer for either of a product and a service, maintaining the offer in a history of offers, detecting the activation of a private offer element within a second computer-based document, the...

20060149634 - Method and system for determining product assortment for retail placement: A system determines an assortment of a plurality of related products for retail placement and includes an assortment selection tool for selecting one or more of the plurality of products as a function of product data in order to define a selected product assortment, a database of additional product data...

20060149635 - Optimizing retrieval of object-associated information: A method of optimizing the retrieval of object-associated information may include identifying data associated with an object identification. At least one optimization parameter for the retrieval of data associated with an object identification is also identified. An amount of the associated data for transmission is determined using the at least...

20060149642 - Automated data collection and transmission: Direct order entry is enabled through the use of a hand-held independent computer that coordinates the entry and transmission of data between a data entry enterprise and a data receiving enterprise. Software and data can be delivered to a data center that can transmit the software and data the hand-held...

20060149638 - Electronic personalized clothing makeover assistant: A method, system, and computer program product for customizing the display of clothing for sale by an enterprise over the Internet so as to view it as it would appear on the body of a particular person specified by a user is provided. In one embodiment, a digitized image of...

20060149640 - Integrating electronic and traditional retail: A business method utilizes a dedicated electronic shopping network having a database and wireless receiving and transmitting components. The network is provided at a retail-type architectural facility where space is rented to a plurality of independent retail entities. For each respective one retail entity, data pertaining to goods offered for...

20060149641 - Method and apparatus for relational linking based upon customer activities: A reason code and token facilitate linking of a primary and secondary merchant to allow the secondary merchant to make an offer to a customer of the first merchant. The website linking system has a reason code, a token, a schema defining information to be passed from a first website,...

20060149639 - Method and system for creating a purchase suggesting list retailers: A system for generating a purchase suggestion list is proposed, comprising: a supplier enterprise resource planning (ERP) system that regularly inputs data of past orders from each of its retail customers into the order database, a retailer computer system regularly that inputs the quantity of each inventory into the inventory...

20060149636 - Method and system for directing the sourcing of a part or component from a secondary supplier: A purchasing entity directs the sourcing of one or more components of a part in a microprocessor-based method. The microprocessor-based method comprises generating a listing for a part that identifies the one or more components. Such a listing is stored in digital electronic form and is accessible by a microcomputer-based...

20060149637 - Methods, systems, and products for participating in an online ecosystem: Methods, systems, and computer program products are disclosed for participating in an online ecosystem. This online ecosystem represents an interrelated community of merchants. When a merchant participates in this online community of merchants, each merchant shares sales information (such as a sales price and a sale quantity) with the online...

20060149643 - Automatic business date determination systems and methods: Systems, methods, and computer program products consistent with the invention provide automatic determination of a date, such as the posting date, associated with a business document or business data that is entering into a data processing system, such as a financial, accounting, or ERP data processing system. For example, a...

20060149644 - Premium sms billing method: A method of billing for products and services wherein a user makes a voice call to a telephone number from a mobile telephone, interacts with a human or computer operator to learn about audio-text products and services offered by a vendor, and then agrees verbally or by pressing one or...

20060149650 - Fundraiser system: A system and method of fundraising that links a donor 106 and a fundraiser client 104 for a fundraising activity. The fundraising system 100 comprises an interface 110, a client computer link 120, a fundraising template 130, a donor computer link 140, and a processing means 150 that initiates the...

20060149646 - Method of processing investment data and making compensation determinations and associated system: A computerized method for processing investment data includes providing a server supporting a database for receiving, processing and storing investment data which includes compensation data; providing a compensation rules engine for processing compensation data employing rules relating to compensation; introducing into the server investment data from a plurality of external...

20060149645 - Non-capitalization weighted stock market index and index fund or funds: A method for the construction of a new type of stock market index, and stock market index fund, or funds where the index is constructed based upon the fundamental realities of the companies contained within the index rather than on the price, or market capitalization of the companies contained with...

20060149648 - Promoting products or services using custom software to deliver: A means for companies to promote products or services to their customers, the general public or any group of users it provides its software to. This invention is particularly useful to financial and marketing companies to allow them to create private channels through which they can market their products or...

20060149652 - Receiving bid requests and pricing bid responses for potential grid job submissions within a grid environment: A computer-implemented method, system, and program for receiving bid requests and pricing bid responses for potential grid job submissions within a grid environment are provided. The grid environment includes multiple grid resource nodes available for executing a grid job at a price. Clients submit bid requests for potential grid job...

20060149651 - Retirement planning system and method: A computer-implemented retirement planning system comprises data collection logic, modeling logic, and report generation logic. The data collection logic is configured to receive data pertaining to an individual planning for retirement. The retirement modeling logic is configured to process the data to generate parameters of a retirement plan. The retirement...

20060149647 - Reverse purchase property transfer transaction and method of administering same: A method of selling real property and a financial transaction are disclosed. The financial transaction comprises a contract for the sale of real property in installments over a discrete time period where the transfer of possession and title from Seller to Buyer does not occur until at least completion of...

20060149649 - Signal testing methodology for long-only portfolios: Described are methods and apparatus, including computerized methods and computer program products, for signal testing for a long-only portfolio. The methodology can be used for assessing the efficacy of a strategy for selecting securities in a long-only portfolio, and the strategy can be implemented to construct a revised long-only portfolio....

20060149658 - Construction contract bidding: In certain embodiments, a web based centralized electronic bidding system for construction bidding includes a database manager that stores contractor and subcontractor and supplier company identification information in a database. A bid processor is provided along with a mechanism for permitting any of the contractor, subcontractor and supplier to log...

20060149659 - Hybrid trading system for concurrently trading through both electronic and open-outcry trading mechanisms: A system and method of allocating orders in an exchange configured for trading by a combination of electronic and open-outcry trading mechanisms is provided. One method includes permitting multiple quotes to be disseminated to the market, and providing market making rights of varying degrees to entities having a physical presence...

20060149660 - Implied market trading system: A computer based trading system implies spread markets from multiple real or implied spread markets. In particular, one aspect of the invention permits implication of a spread market from a combination of inter-commodity and inter-calendar spread orders. Furthermore, another aspect of the invention allows use of nontradeable implied or bridge...

20060149654 - Initiating orders to buy or sell tradeable objects: A system and method for providing order entry devices which are tailored for use in an electronic trading environment are described herein. To assist traders in performing at their most optimum levels, some of the preferred order entry devices include only input mechanisms tailored for fast data entry into a...

20060149653 - Method and system for online sales and purchase: Internet-based commercial network connects multiple qualified participant buyers and sellers. Items are made available for defined periods of time, referred to as an event (139). Event terms and conditions include item types, price, quantity, volume or units, discount, shipping terms (138). Reiterative offer and counteroffers permit negotiation of terms for...

20060149655 - Methods and systems to alert a user of a network-based marketplace event: A system to alert a user of a network-based marketplace event. The system receives the network-based marketplace event and determines if the network-based marketplace event is associated with a network-based marketplace alert that has been requested by the user. If so, the system communicates the network-based marketplace alert to the...

20060149661 - Numerical calculation device, numerical calculation method, and computer product: A numerical calculation device calculates a value of any one of an option premium or an option risk indicator or both related to a barrier option. The numerical calculation device includes a magnitude relation judging unit that judges a magnitude relation between a value of a volatility used for a...

20060149657 - Paid-for research method and system: A method, computer program product, and server computer for monitoring one or more commissions generated during a offering of a security. A research portion of the one or more commissions generated is designated for funding paid-for research for the security....

20060149656 - System and method for conducting auctions of product sets: Systems and method for providing an auction. A computer server has a searchable database of items offered for sale by a plurality of sellers. The database is accessible by a plurality of sellers and a plurality of buyers. A conglomeration agent running on the server identifies related items for sale...

20060149662 - System and method for real-time options trading over a global computer network: The present invention relates to a method and system for electronically trading a financial instrument. The method includes entering a bid order for the financial instrument and placing the bid order in a bid queue associated with a buyer who maintains a list of sellers to sell the financial instrument...

20060149664 - Marketing system and method: Disclosed herein are exemplary techniques for and of marketing a loan product to a customer. The system and method establish communication with a customer regarding a current loan; access a customer service module; inputting loan information provided by the customer into the customer service module; displaying a plurality potential loan...

20060149666 - Method and system for originating loans: A method of originating a loan. In one embodiment, the method includes establishing a legally binding agreement between a real estate agent and a mortgage company. The agreement has a set of terms which include establishing the real estate agent as an independent contractor; obligating the real estate agent to...

20060149663 - Mortgage financing system: The present invention is a method for providing mortgage financing to a borrower while additionally creating the opportunity for the borrower to invest in their long and short-term financial security. In real estate purchase, a mortgage is extended for greater than the real estate purchase price. The surplus amount is...

20060149665 - Systems and methods for facilitating lending between two or more parties: A method and a system for facilitating lending between private parties, the private parties including a lendee and at least one lender. For example, a loan request from a lendee may be received, the loan request sent to at least one lender, the lender indicating acceptance of the loan request,...

20060149670 - Auto substantiation for over-the-counter transactions: A flexible spending account system can be implemented according to one embodiment of the invention so as to automatically substantiate purchases made at a retailer merchant. For example, according to one embodiment of the invention, a method of authorizing products for purchase can be implemented by determining via a computer...

20060149667 - Method and system for transferring funds: This invention relates to the field of commerce and in particular to a method of transferring funds using a payment card. Existing funds transfer systems suffer from a number of problems including for example lengthy delays associated with their delivery, high processing costs and high administrative costs. To alleviate these...

20060149668 - System and method for financing commercial transactions: A method for financing a commercial transaction between a supplier and a buyer, including engaging a buyer receiving goods or services under terms of trade credit from a supplier of goods or services, the trade credit permitting payment for the goods or services at a future date, the buyer neutralizing...

20060149669 - System, program and method for determining the compensatory value to avoid contract termination over computer network: A computer program, system and method for determining compensatory amount in a deposit-share exchange agreement over a computer network such as the Internet. Such compensatory amount is necessary to accord and satisfaction in place of an action to sue by depositor for damages where the deposit institution failed to exchange...

20060149671 - Payment processing method and system: A payment processing system includes one transaction processor that aggregates cost data associated with low-priced sales transactions between a consumer and a merchant. The transaction processor sends data that represents the aggregated cost data to an acquiring banking entity associated with the merchant. The system also includes another transaction processor...

20060149672 - Data processing system for managing and configuring an electronic transmission of a deposit: A data processing system for managing and configuring an electronic transmission of a deposit with the steps of: computer processor for processing data, storage for storing data on a storage medium, transmit data for sending data, network for connecting computers and computer processors for sharing data, signaling check processing structure...

20060149673 - Secure internet transaction system: A secure Internet authorization system is based on matching of randomly generated number strings, generated at a module carried by an individual seeking authorization and uploaded to an offline vault during a setup procedure. During authorization the module generates one portion of the string, with the vault generating a quickly...

20060149674 - System and method for identity-based fraud detection for transactions using a plurality of historical identity records: A method for identifying a fraudulent account application includes receiving a new account application comprising a plurality of identity-related fields and linking the identity-related fields associated with the new account application with identity-related fields associated with a plurality of historical account applications. The links form a graphical pattern on which...

20060149675 - Card issuing system and card issuing method: Security of an IC card containing customer's personal information is secured and the IC card is issued in real time even in bases of a card company in any security environments. A card issuing center 1 has a center communication means 11 for transmitting customer's card writing data to a...

20060149677 - Contextual ad processing on local machine: A system is disclosed for serving advertisements to a user of a client device. A set of advertisements are downloaded to the client device. Based on data stored on the client device, or action taken on the client device, a subset of the advertisement are chosen for presentation to the...

20060149676 - Method and apparatus for providing a secure move of a decrpytion content key: The present invention discloses an apparatus and method for providing a secure move of a content decryption key within or between domains. Namely, the present invention addresses the single copy usage rule by restricting the movement of the decryption key instead of restricting the movement of the encrypted content itself....

20060149678 - System and method for protecting data streams in hardware components: A scrambling architecture protects data streams in the operating system and hardware components of a computer by scrambling the otherwise raw data prior to the data being handled by the operating system. The architecture has a scrambler implemented at either the client or the server that adds noise to the...

20060149679 - Privilege management system, method, and recording medium: In the example of the invention, an accepting section of a privilege management system accepts privilege coupon data and a right data acquisition request. The privilege coupon data includes permitting side condition ID which specifies a utilization permitting side which permits granting a privilege. The acquisition request includes a utilizing...

20060149680 - System for controlling the distribution and use of digital works: A method, system and software for securely rendering digital documents, including storing a digital document in a document platform; and storing a usage right associated with the digital document. The usage right specifies a manner of use indicating the manner in which the digital document can be rendered by the...

20060149681 - Method and system for the process of music creation, development, and distribution: The present invention represents accomplishes the basic idea of providing a marketplace platform through which music and consumer purchasing power can be directly exchanged. It is a downloadable application wherein music files are stored on a central system, not a P2P network of linked computers. The present invention merges a...

20060149682 - Disk device: A disk device for recording required information in or reproducing recorded information from a disk type information recording medium including a read-in area, a user-data area and a read-out area and capable of recording genre of audiovisual information recorded in the user-data area in a block of the read-in area...

20060149683 - User terminal for receiving license: The invention is directed to a device that carries out secure distribution of a license particularly necessary for using a digital content in a copyrighted digital content distribution system. By a method of distributing a license according to the invention, a license encryption key for distribution is produced by a...

20060149684 - Visiting place identification device and visiting place identification method: The present invention includes: a current position determination unit (101) that determines a current position of a user; a facility candidate search unit (103A) that specifies, as a candidate for a visited place, a facility that is located within a predetermined area including the current position determined by the current...

20060149685 - Method of processing rental requests and returns: A delivery mechanism for distributing media items to subscribers uses a timed based benchmark in lieu of or in addition to a conventional capacity driven model. In this manner, titles are delivered based on delays introduced intentionally and based on title demand, subscriber behavior, etc....

20060149686 - Method of payment and settlement of goods and services via the internet: This invention relates to a specific method and process of payment and settlement of goods and services purchased through an INTERNET network platform. The method enables seamless connectivity between INTERNET purchaser/buyer savings, checking, money market, certificate of deposit and cash management account and merchant/seller savings, checking, money market and cash...

20060149689 - Automated media verification and price polling: In a computer system, an identification of media content stored on a medium is determined. The identification is provided to a first electronic device, such as a server. A price at which the medium storing the media content may be sold is received from the first electronic device....

20060149688 - Method for predicting tire life-cycle cost: Exemplary embodiments provide a technique for determining life cycle cost of a tire that includes combining initial purchase information and an assessment of operating costs for a customer. Determination of operating costs includes correlating roll resistance with respect to inflation pressure and vehicle imposed load of the tire, as well...

20060149687 - System and method for automated management of custom home design and build projects: The present invention preferably enables parties to electronically submit parameters into an Internet application regarding a custom homebuilding project. The application accurately predicts labor and materials costs associated therefor. The present invention also provides details directed to the processes associated with custom homebuilding projects and eliminates surprises that may arise...

20060149690 - Method and system for conveying funds to postage meters: In a postage meter capable of making a request to refill automatically when postage funds drop below a threshold value, date-based rules are used to disable the refilling request if the request is made before an idle period. In order to avoid having unused funds sit unused during the idle...

20060149691 - Method and system for enablement and management of ad hoc electric energy consumption: An apparatus and method for providing electric energy in an ad hoc manner to a customer having an electrically-powered device, includes an electric connection unit configured to electrically connect to the electrically-powered device, the electric connection unit being in a default state in which electrical energy is not output from...