Routing service call messages

• US 10,397,070 B2
• Filed: 09/27/2017
• Issued: 08/27/2019
• Est. Priority Date: 01/11/2013
• Status: Active Grant

• Current Assignee: American Express Travel Related Services Company, Inc. (American Express Company)
• Original Assignee: American Express Travel Related Services Company, Inc. (American Express Company)
• Inventors: Allen, Clinton R., Crofts, Paul M., Fromm, Jeff W.
• Primary Examiner(s): Huq, Obaidul
• Application Number:
  US15/716,839
• Publication Number:
  US 20180034713A1
• Time in Patent Office: 699 Days
• Field of Search: 370259
• CPC Class Codes: G06Q 10/0639 Performance analysis of employees; Performance analysis of enterprise or organisation operations
• CPC Class Codes: G06Q 20/10 specially adapted for electronic funds transfer [EFT] systems; specially adapted for home banking systems
• CPC Class Codes: G06Q 30/00 Commerce
• CPC Class Codes: G06Q 30/0226 Incentive systems for frequent usage, e.g. frequent flyer miles programs or point systems
• CPC Class Codes: H04L 12/1403 Architecture for metering, charging or billing
• CPC Class Codes: H04L 41/5051 Service on demand, e.g. definition and deployment of services in real time
• CPC Class Codes: H04L 63/10 for controlling access to devices or network resources
• CPC Class Codes: H04L 67/10 in which an application is distributed across nodes in the network software deployment G06F8/60; multiprogramming arrangements G06F9/46
• CPC Class Codes: H04L 67/12 specially adapted for proprietary or special-purpose networking environments, e.g. medical networks, sensor networks, networks in vehicles or remote metering networks
• CPC Class Codes: H04L 67/146 Markers for unambiguous identification of a particular session, e.g. session cookie or URL-encoding
• CPC Class Codes: H04L 67/56 Provisioning of proxy services store-and-forward switching systems in data switching networks H04L12/54
• CPC Class Codes: H04M 3/5183 Call or contact centers with computer-telephony arrangements

Abstract

The present system and method comprises an improved marketplace for providing and consuming services. Using the present system, generally via one or more APIs, comprises a method for integrating value added services within a network of participants, for instance, a payment network. The network can use service switching capabilities to route service calls to and from the service consumers and providers using routing elements defined in a message specification. Network participants can be both consumers and providers of services. The network can route service messages to the appropriate provider depending on details in the message.

Claims

1. A computer-based method comprising:

receiving, by a computer and via a first application protocol interface (API), a request for routing a service call message;

routing, by the computer and through a second API, the service call message to a service provider based on routing attributes of the service call message;

receiving, by the computer and through the second API, a response to the routed service call message;

tagging, by the computer, the response to the routed service call message with tags having data indicating privileges of the service provider to deliver services to a service consumer;

scrubbing, by the computer, the tags of the response to the routed service call message;

routing, by the computer and through the first API, the response to the routed service call message to the service consumer based on response attributes of the response to the routed service call message; and

auditing, by the computer, an efficiency of the routing of the service call message and the routing of the response.

2. The method of claim 1, further comprising securing, by the computer, an identity of the service consumer from a marketplace of service providers and service consumers.

3. The method of claim 1, further comprising scrubbing, by the computer, tags of the service call message from the service call message.

4. The method of claim 3, wherein the tags include the routing attributes of routing the service call message from the service consumer to the service provider.

5. The method of claim 1, further comprising routing, by the computer and through the second API, the service call message to the service provider based on the routing attributes of the service call message.

6. The method of claim 1, further comprising assessing, by the computer, a fee to the service consumer for processing the request for the routing the service call message.

7. The method of claim 1, further comprising tagging, by the computer, at least one of information identifying the service consumer of the routed service call message, information identifying an intended recipient of the routed service call message, information identifying an actual recipient of the routed service call message, information identifying a time of an origination of the request for the routing, or information identifying a time of the delivering the request to the actual recipient.

8. The method of claim 1, further comprising verifying, by the computer, privileges of the service consumer to request the services from the service provider.

9. The method of claim 8, wherein the verifying further comprises comparing the routing attributes of the request for the routing to a rule of an agreement.

10. The method of claim 9, further comprising tagging, by the computer, the data with at least one of the rule, the agreement, or a version of the agreement.

11. The method of claim 1, wherein the service call message is routed within an electronic marketplace of service providers and service consumers.

12. The method of claim 1, wherein a fee is assessed to the service consumer based on at least one of processing the request for routing the service call message from the service consumer to the service provider based on the tags of the service call message, each service call message processed by the computer, the tags of the service call message after the scrubbing of the tags of the service call message, or routing the service call message to the service consumer based on a pro-rated cost of hardware elements used to switch each message.

13. The method of claim 1, further comprising appending, by the computer, a token comprising proxy attributes to the service call message.

14. The method of claim 1, wherein the routing is based on at least one of service consumer identification attributes or proxy attributes.

15. The method of claim 1, further comprising tagging, by the computer, at least one of an identification of hardware elements or software processors used to deliver the service call message from the service consumer to the service provider.

16. The method of claim 1, wherein each service call message may be routed based on on-call functionality of the computer.

17. A system comprising:

a processor; and

a tangible, non-transitory memory configured to communicate with the processor,

the tangible, non-transitory memory having instructions stored thereon that, in response to execution by the processor, cause the processor to perform operations comprising;

receiving, by the processor and via a first application protocol interface (API), a request for routing a service call message;

routing, by the processor and through a second API, the service call message to a service provider based on routing attributes of the service call message;

receiving, by the processor and through the second API, a response to the routed service call message;

tagging, by the processor, the response to the routed service call message with tags having data indicating privileges of the service provider to deliver services to a service consumer;

scrubbing, by the processor, the tags of the response to the routed service call message;

routing, by the processor and through the first API, the response to the routed service call message to the service consumer based on response attributes of the response to the routed service call message; and

auditing, by the processor, an efficiency of the routing of the service call message and the routing of the response.

18. A non-transitory computer-readable storage medium having computer-executable instructions stored thereon that, in response to execution by a computer, causes the computer to perform operations comprising:

receiving, by the computer and via a first application protocol interface (API), a request for routing a service call message;

routing, by the computer and through a second API, the service call message to a service provider based on routing attributes of the service call message;

receiving, by the computer and through the second API, a response to the routed service call message;

tagging, by the computer, the response to the routed service call message with tags having data indicating privileges of the service provider to deliver services to a service consumer;

scrubbing, by the computer, the tags of the response to the routed service call message;

routing, by the computer and through the first API, the response to the routed service call message to the service consumer based on response attributes of the response to the routed service call message; and

auditing, by the computer, an efficiency of the routing of the service call message and the routing of the response.