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  E-commerce transaction facilitation system and methodUSPTO Application #: 20070208656Title: E-commerce transaction facilitation system and method Abstract: determining whether a submitted trading profile from a second entity (4) has a desirability value that equals or exceeds the desirability value of said desired trading profile using said one or more mathematical relationships.
accepting in respect of a first entity (3) a desired trading profile including at least desired values or ranges of multiple of said trading parameters and information for establishing one or more functional relationships between variations in at least a key trading parameter and other of said trading parameters; establishing one or more mathematical relationships between variations in at least the key trading parameter and the other of said trading parameters; wherein said one or more mathematical relationships can be used to determine a set of trading profiles having substantially equal expected desirability values to said desired trading profile; and
A method of operating a computer to facilitate a commercial transaction involving a plurality of negotiable trading parameters. The method includes the following steps resulting from the execution of a computer program: (end of abstract)
Agent: Sheldon Mak Rose & Anderson PC - Pasadena, CA, US Inventors: Donald P. Feaver, Kenneth G. Wilson, Craig A. Astill USPTO Applicaton #: 20070208656 - Class: 705037000 (USPTO) Related Patent Categories: Data Processing: Financial, Business Practice, Management, Or Cost/price Determination, Automated Electrical Financial Or Business Practice Or Management Arrangement, Finance (e.g., Banking, Investment Or Credit), Trading, Matching, Or Bidding The Patent Description & Claims data below is from USPTO Patent Application 20070208656. Brief Patent Description - Full Patent Description - Patent Application Claims
CROSS-REFERENCE TO RELATED APPLICATIONS [0001] This application is a continuation-in-part of U.S. patent application Ser. No. 11/491,271 entitled "E-Commerce Transaction Facilitation Systems and Method," filed 21 Jul. 2006, which is a continuation of U.S. patent application Ser. No. 10/244,955 entitled "E-Commerce Transaction Facilitation System and Method", filed 16 Sep. 2002, which is a continuation of International Patent Application No PCT/AU01/00299, entitled "E-Commerce Transaction Facilitation System and Method", filed 16 Mar. 2001, which claims priority from Australian Provisional Patent Application No PQ6289, entitled "E-Commerce Transaction Facilitation System and Method", filed 16 Mar. 2000, the contents of which are incorporated by reference herein in its entirety. [0002] The invention relates to the facilitation of commercial transactions, and relates particularly to the facilitation of commercial transactions using electronic communications networks, otherwise known as e-commerce transactions. The invention relates to the facilitation of activities that occur within a real economic trading system by providing a mechanism by which the structure, dynamics and business process requirements of `real` economic processes and emulated and thereby contributing to efficiently functioning markets and optimal transactional outcomes. [0003] Globalization of the world economy and the increasing ubiquity of Internet usage have resulted in product markets becoming increasingly more competitive and immediate than ever before. Despite the immense interest in facilitation of business-to-business (B2B) transactions using e-commerce, a cost-effective and easily implemented B2B solution that provides comprehensive e-enablement for market search, e-procurement and e-sales functions that integrate with/to enterprises' back-office software systems is not generally in use. [0004] A model for economic interaction in the form of a computer-based system does not exist that provides a comprehensive solution that enables business enterprises to use the communications infrastructure of the Internet to transact online within an economic environment/framework that possesses the structural characteristics of `real` economic processes that are essential to producing optimal transactional outcomes. Moreover, existing tools are particularly inadequate to address the complexity associated with international transactions where the trade amounts are often significant. [0005] To date, Internet-based business systems that cater to facilitating commercial transactions between business enterprises (B2B) have been developed using economic frameworks that are seriously flawed. Numerous different models or configurations of so-called "digital marketplaces" have emerged in recent years. These existing models would appear to be based on an imprecise understanding and/or use of the technology that results in a distortion of fundamental economic principles. [0006] For example, the existing e-commerce models emphasize the notion of creating digital marketplaces. Two predominant models are the "business portal" that provides a centralized multi-product "retail or end-user" style model; or the "industry-specific marketplace" model. Although both purport to create digital marketplaces, these models represent an electronic environment in which business contacts may be established that may lead to the eventual transaction of business. However, neither of these models is capable of capturing the subtle complexity of the dynamics underlying well-functioning markets. [0007] Until now, B2B e-commerce business systems have neglected to deal with the subtle, distinctions that exist between the concepts of markets, industries, firms and products. The failure to properly configure the processes that flow from the inter-relationship between these concepts has had the effect of creating artificial business environments rather than extending existing product markets. [0008] Instead, efficient and well-functioning digital markets must be configured within an economic framework that enhances and extends, rather than distorts, the competitive dynamics and structural relationships of existing patterns of economic activity and behaviour. [0009] The economic dimensions of commercial processes are complex and operate at many different levels. In a conventional context, the economic inter-relationships that combine to produce well functioning markets and resource-efficient business transactions arise from signals and feedbacks between buyers and sellers that are channelled through multiple forms of information networks. The Internet has challenged the conventional forms of information signals and feedbacks as the information network is capable of consolidation within a single medium. [0010] A consequence of the unification of information delivery within a single dynamic medium is the mistaken belief that a change in information network structure has the potential to change the principles underlying fundamental economic behaviour and relationships. This belief, however, is not accurate. In order for an economically-based business system to function consistent with first best principles of efficiency, systems must be designed to be consistent with, and enhance, economic structures and processes in order to deliver efficient market and transactional outcomes. [0011] In order to construct an efficient commercial delivery process within the parameters of electronic business networks, the Applicant has determined that it would be desirable for there first to be an identification and understanding of the structural inter-relationships between prevailing economic concepts/conditions that must be present within an economic system in order to generate efficiently functioning markets and optimal transactional outcomes. Second, it would be desirable for the business process related transactional flows within and between information channels within the system to be clarified. [0012] Table 1 is a table of factors to help explain the conditions that the Applicant has determined to be desirable to embed within the structure of an efficiently functioning economic system. An optimized electronic B2B model should be capable of emulating the most critical of the subtle economic interactions that spontaneously occur under conventional circumstances. This has not yet been built into current electronic B2B models because no one has adequately articulated the composition of a unifying economic framework that could provide the system infrastructure for an electronic economic system. [0013] The foundation of the electronic economic system developed by the Applicant is based upon an inter-related set of three parametric conditions. Each parametric condition provides an ingredient required in order for the `economic process` to function properly. The three system parameters are the: [0014] equilibrium condition/force [0015] optimization condition/force [0016] maximization condition/force [0017] In an e-commerce applications context, each of the three parameters corresponds to an important systemic function that transpires within the framework. In order to simplify the arguments that will follow, Table 1 identifies the key relationships that will be discussed further below: TABLE-US-00001 TABLE 1 Parametric Dimensional Functional Application Condition Characteristics Attributes Purposes Equilibrium Structural The macroeconomic Firm to market, mechanics (market) to firm to firm microeconomic connectivity (firm) inter- and data relationship communication channels Optimization Competitive Convergence of User (strategic) dynamics demand and supply behaviour- signals forces/tensions and feedbacks Maximization Process Internal resource Task handling efficiency utilization and and management allocation decision-making [0018] In broad terms, an `economic system` is the sum of a series of inter-connected sub-system relationships. The sub-systems are the generators of dynamic forces that each sub-system both injects into, and extracts from, the system in order to execute a `core business process`. Each sub-system, in turn, is comprised of a consolidation of task-oriented business processes that influence (feed into) the characteristics of the sub-system level process. [0019] The inter-relationship among the three above-referenced system parametric forces to be captured within an e-commerce model can be succinctly contextualized as follows. At the system level the predominant force is the well-functioning system's tendency towards equilibrium (i.e., the balancing of opposing dynamic (supply and demand) forces. At the sub-system level, the predominant function is to reach optimal demand-side or supply-side oriented transactional outcomes (the exchange function). The optimization process, in general terms, is a function of the enterprise's business process driven tendency towards maximizing resource (demand-side expenditure or supply-side revenue gains) relative to the market (equilibrium) benchmark. [0020] In a business process/transactional context, Table 2 is a table of factors that have a subtle, business process inter-relationship. The Applicant has developed a particular configuration of the direct and indirect economic relationships between these structural factors, that is implemented in a manner that, within the context of the medium, efficiently channels information flows to optimize the business process outcomes that correspond to those relationships. TABLE-US-00002 TABLE 2 Market Focus and Functions Transaction Focus and Functions Buyer Seller Demand Supply Industry Firms Product market Products [0021] From a business process perspective, the commercial process can be viewed as having two discrete stages. First is a "market-oriented" dimension. Second, this orientation subsequently shifts at a critical point in the commercial process to a specific "transactional focus". A feature that distinguishes the two is the subset of factors which represent the dominant forces that influence the discrete outcomes occurring at the evolving stages of a commercial process. [0022] The origin of a transaction begins with a buyer. Buyers, in economics, equate with a "demand" or the desire to satisfy a material need. In order to satisfy this need, the buyer conducts a vertical "drilling-down" or information gathering process that begins at a general level and moves to increasing degrees of specificity in identifying: [0023] the product it wants more precisely (for: example, a boat or a automobile; that is, what general industry); [0024] where, or the source, from which the product can be obtained (for example, which firm supplies the product); [0025] comparative product characteristics; i.e., price, quality availability etc. [0026] At this stage, the information gathering process is driven by, and conforms most closely with neo-classical demand theory. Within the context of competitive dynamics, the process explains how buyer-led demand-side forces are the predominant influence affecting the progress of the search from a general to specific refinement process. [0027] At the broadest level, a buyer will conduct a search within more general parameters--at the industry level. An industry, however, is most easily defined as a categorization, typology, or grouping of firms that consists of those firms that operate processes of a sufficiently similar kind and could produce products that are close substitutes. Some firms within an industry will produce certain products, while other firms belonging to the same industry may produce an entirely different range of products. Although there will be a "market" for all products produced by the industry, clearly, there is no such thing as a single "industry market". [0028] The forum, or institutional environment in which the buyer exercises its demand-side influence takes the form of what is described as a "product market". However, a precise definition of what constitutes a "product market" is among one of the more elusive concepts in economics. In fact, there exists no single concept of exactly what is a market. One definition (the Lancastrian definition) asserts that markets should be thought of as being made up of "products having similar characteristics". A combination of these above definitions results in a concept that markets are a notional forum in which products having similar characteristics are exchanged. [0029] At a particular point in the buyer's decision-making process, a fundamental event in the spatial orientation of the demand-side processes occur. At the moment the buyer decides upon the specific type of product it is seeking, the decision-making process ceases to be vertical, and shifts to a horizontally oriented comparative analysis between like goods. Continue reading... Full patent description for E-commerce transaction facilitation system and method Brief Patent Description - Full Patent Description - Patent Application Claims Click on the above for other options relating to this E-commerce transaction facilitation system and method patent application. ###  How KEYWORD MONITOR works... a FREE service from FreshPatents1. Sign up (takes 30 seconds). 2. Fill in the keywords to be monitored. 3. Each week you receive an email with patent applications related to your keywords. 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