Method and system for constructing price structures for complex products and services

• US 20030158784A1
• Filed: 02/15/2002
• Published: 08/21/2003
• Est. Priority Date: 02/15/2002
• Status: Active Grant

• Current Assignee: Teranet Incorporated (Teranet Holdings LP)
• Original Assignee: Teranet Enterprises, Inc. (Teranet Holdings LP)
• Inventors: Goldberg, Dov, Shaver, Allan B., Conville, Cameron, Krasnay, John, Kostoff, Mike
• Granted Patent: US 7,343,325 B2
• Time in Patent Office: Days
• US Class Current: 705/26
• CPC Class Codes: G06Q 30/02 Marketing; Price estimation or determination; Fundraising
• CPC Class Codes: G06Q 30/0207 Discounts or incentives, e.g. coupons or rebates
• CPC Class Codes: G06Q 30/0283 Price estimation or determination
• CPC Class Codes: G06Q 40/00 Finance; Insurance; Tax strategies; Processing of corporate or income taxes

Abstract

The invention provides a system and method for constructing and maintaining a price structure for an e-commerce transaction relating to a complex product or service. A pricing tree is built of “price components” which include discrete revenues, price adjustments, taxes, and disbursements (such as royalties). Separate revenue streams, which may be allocated to different service providers, may have independent adjustment, tax, and disbursement treatments. Attributes may also be used in the calculation of separate components. Time-date adjustments and rate package adjustments are also supported. The system allows both automated calculation and accounting using the pricing tree. Transactions are supported by a modular e-commerce back-end platform.

Claims

1. A method of providing a price structure for a transaction relating to a product or service within an electronic commerce back-end platform, the method comprising:

providing a product administration interface for defining a preselected number of revenue streams for the product or service, and for defining business rules to determine a price structure of the product or service;

providing a customer interface for performing a transaction;

providing within a computer memory, responsive to both the product administration interface and the customer interface, a pricing tree of price components for a unit of a product or service, the components comprising;

a first revenue stream allocable in whole or in part to a first provider; and

a second revenue stream allocable in whole or in part to a second provider; and

providing a resulting price based on a calculation of the components in the pricing tree, the components staying discretely allocated within the computer memory after the calculation of the resulting price.

2. The method of claim 1, wherein the components further comprise the resulting price.

3. The method of claim 1, wherein the components further comprise a first price adjustment applied to one or both of the first revenue stream and the second revenue stream.

4. The method of claim 3, wherein the first price adjustment comprises a discount.

5. The method of claim 3, wherein the first price adjustment comprises a surcharge.

6. The method of claim 3, wherein the components further comprise a second price adjustment applied to one or both of the first revenue stream and the second revenue stream in addition to the first price adjustment.

7. The method of claim 6, wherein the first price adjustment and second price adjustment are applied in a predetermined sequence.

8. The method of claim 6, wherein the first price adjustment and second price adjustment are applied in the sequence resulting in the lowest resulting price.

9. The method of claim 1, wherein the components further comprise a first tax applied to one or both of the first revenue stream and the second revenue stream.

10. The method of claim 9, wherein the components further comprise a second tax applied over the first tax.

11. The method of claim 1, wherein the components further comprise at least one disbursement, comprising a part of the first revenue stream or the second revenue stream allocable to the first provider or the second provider, the disbursement being allocated as a component without affecting the resulting price.

12. The method of claim 11, wherein the disbursement comprises a royalty.

13. The method of claim 12, wherein the royalty comprises a fixed or variable amount.

14. The method of claim 1, wherein a component comprises at least one attribute.

15. The method of claim 14, wherein the attribute is a price-affecting attribute.

16. The method of claim 14, wherein the attribute is a non-price-affecting attribute.

17. The method of claim 1, wherein the method further includes applying a time/date argument to calculate a component.

18. The method of claim 1, wherein the method further includes applying a rate package argument to calculate a component.

19. The method of claim 1, wherein the method comprises a method of constructing and maintaining a price structure for a transaction relating to an electronically-delivered government service or product.

20. The method of claim 19, wherein the first revenue stream comprises a statutory revenue stream and the second revenue stream comprises a value-added revenue stream.

21. A system for providing a price structure for a product or service within an electronic commerce back-end platform, the system comprising:

a product administration interface capable of receiving definitions of a preselected number of price components and accepting business rules for manipulating the components;

a customer interface capable of receiving information from a customer initiating the transaction;

a processor, in communication with the product administration interface and the customer interface, and executing software, the software comprising;

a pricing tree builder for building a pricing tree of components, including;

a first revenue stream allocable to a first provider;

a second revenue stream allocable to a second provider; and

a resulting price generator for calculating a resulting price from specific components according to the business rules; and

a computer storage in communication with the processor for storing the business rules and components and the information, the storage capable of storing the components so as to stay discretely allocated after the calculation of the resulting price.

22. The system of claim 21, wherein the components further comprise the resulting price.

23. The system of claim 21, wherein the components further comprise a first price adjustment applied to one or both of the first revenue stream and the second revenue stream.

24. The system of claim 23, wherein the first price adjustment comprises a discount.

25. The system of claim 23, wherein the first price adjustment comprises a surcharge.

26. The system of claim 23, wherein the components further comprise a second price adjustment applied to one or both of the first revenue stream and the second revenue stream in addition to the first price adjustment.

27. The system of claim 26, wherein the first price adjustment and second price adjustment are applied in a predetermined sequence.

28. The system of claim 26, wherein the first price adjustment and second price adjustment are applied in the sequence resulting in the lowest resulting price.

29. The system of claim 21, wherein the components further comprise a first tax applied to one or both of the first revenue stream and the second revenue stream.

30. The system of claim 29, wherein the components further comprise a second tax applied over the first tax.

31. The system of claim 21, wherein the components further comprise at least one disbursement, comprising a part of the first revenue stream or the second revenue stream allocable to the first provider or the second provider, the disbursement being allocated as a component without affecting the resulting price.

32. The system of claim 31, wherein the disbursement comprises a royalty.

33. The system of claim 32, wherein the royalty comprises a fixed or variable amount.

34. The system of claim 21, wherein a component comprises at least one attribute.

35. The system of claim 34, wherein the attribute is a price-affecting attribute.

37. The system of claim 21, wherein the software further comprises a time/date determiner for selectively applying a time/date-based business rule.

38. The system of claim 21, wherein the software further comprises a rate package determiner for selectively applying a rate package-based business rule.

39. The system of claim 21, wherein the system comprises a system for constructing and maintaining a price structure for a transaction relating to an electronically-delivered government service or product.

40. The system of claim 39, wherein the first revenue stream comprises a statutory revenue stream and the second revenue stream comprises a value-added revenue stream.

41. The system of claim 21, wherein each business rule comprises an expression.

42. The system of claim 41, wherein the expression includes at least one operator selected from the group consisting of:

if, and, not, or, <

, >

, min, max, +,−

, *, /, ( ).

43. The system of claim 41, wherein the software includes an expression parser for parsing a plurality of nodes within an expression.

44. The system of claim 21, wherein the electronic commerce back-end platform comprises a modular platform for supporting an electronic commerce front-end application, the platform comprising modules for pricing, billing, accounting, collection and customer care, the modules being in communication with each other within the platform.

45. The system of claim 44, wherein the modules comprise Enterprise Java Bean™

(EJB) components.

46. The system of claim 44, wherein the software is in communication with an accounting module for passing component values to accounts in the accounting module.

47. The system of claim 44, wherein the software is in communication with a collections module to pass the resulting price to the collections module for initiating a collection from a customer.

36. The system of claim34, wherein the attribute is a non-price-affecting attribute.

48. A software program stored on a computer-readable medium, the software program comprising:

a pricing tree builder for providing a pricing tree of price components passed to the software from business rules input by a user with values passed to the software from a customer interface, the components including;

a first revenue stream allocable to a first provider;

a second revenue stream allocable to a second provider; and

a resulting price generator for calculating a resulting price from specific components according to the business rules.