Automated negotiation agent and method of evaluating risk and trust in contract negotiation by electronic means
First Claim
1. A method of determining risk and trust for electronic negotiation of contracts, comprising:
- receiving a contract proposal from a negotiation agent;
analysing the contract proposal using a contract template and from different viewpoints to determine measures of the risk and trust involved;
formulating a response from the measures of risk and trust to send to the negotiation agent; and
returning the response to the negotiation agent.
1 Assignment
0 Petitions
Accused Products
Abstract
There is provided an automated negotiation agent 1 and method of evaluating risk and trust from different contractual viewpoints during electronic negotiation of contracts, preferably e-contracts, in a business to business environment. The negotiation agent 1 on receiving a contract proposal from another agent 15, analyses the contract proposal from different viewpoints to determine measures of the risk and trust involved. A response 20 is formulated from the measures of risk and trust, and is returned to the other agent 15. The negotiation agent 1 has an evaluation engine 9 which evaluates the risk and viewpoints for the contract proposal by accessing a risk and trust functions and viewpoints database 4, a contract template database 2, a contract context database 13 and contract history repository 10. The negotiation agent also has a negotiation engine 8 that evaluates the effect of the contract proposal from different levels using the risk and trust viewpoints received from the evaluation engine 9. The negotiation engine 8 is driven by a utility function and can access the contract template database 2 and the contract history repository 10 during its evaluation. The response returned to the other agent 15 is dependant on the evaluation and is output by the negotiation engine 8.
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Citations
19 Claims
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1. A method of determining risk and trust for electronic negotiation of contracts, comprising:
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receiving a contract proposal from a negotiation agent;
analysing the contract proposal using a contract template and from different viewpoints to determine measures of the risk and trust involved;
formulating a response from the measures of risk and trust to send to the negotiation agent; and
returning the response to the negotiation agent. - View Dependent Claims (2, 3, 4, 5, 6, 7, 8, 9, 10, 11, 12, 13)
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14. A method of determining risk and trust for electronic negotiation of contracts, comprising:
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receiving a contract proposal from a negotiation agent;
analysing the contract proposal using a contract template and from different viewpoints by associating metadata to contract templates and to aggregations of contract templates to describe risk functions and trust functions for the contract proposal; and
determining each viewpoint from one or more of the risk and the trust functions to determine measures of the risk and trust involved;
formulating a response from the measures of risk and trust to send to the negotiation agent; and
returning the response to the negotiation agent.
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15. A method of determining risk and trust for electronic negotiation of contracts, comprising:
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receiving a contract proposal from a negotiation agent;
analysing the contract proposal using a contract template and from different viewpoints in the context of all contract terms and conditions comprising the contract proposal to determine measures of the risk and trust involved;
calculating risk mitigation tactics on the basis of analysis of the measures of risk and trust involved for the contract proposal using a negotiation engine;
formulating a response from the measures of risk and trust and influenced by the risk mitigation tactics, to send to the negotiation agent; and
returning the response to the negotiation agent.
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16. A negotiating agent for measuring risk and trust in real time during electronic negotiation of contracts comprising:
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an evaluation engine for receiving a contract proposal and evaluating the risk and trust viewpoints for the contract proposal;
a risk and trust functions and viewpoints store for storing metadata associated with contract templates, and accessible by the evaluation engine for evaluating the risk and trust viewpoints;
a contract context store for storing contextual data associated with contract negotiation, and accessible by the evaluation engine for evaluating the risk and trust viewpoints;
a negotiation engine for receiving risk and trust viewpoints from the evaluation engine, and driven by a utility function for evaluating the effect of the contract proposal from different levels;
a contract template store for storing metadata associated with contract templates, and accessible by the evaluation engine for evaluating the risk and trust viewpoints and accessible by the negotiation engine for evaluating the effect of the contract proposal; and
a contract history repository for storing data associated with past contracts, and accessible by the evaluation engine for evaluating the risk and trust viewpoints and the negotiating engine for evaluating the effect of the contract proposal, wherein the negotiation engine is configured for outputting a response that is dependent on the evaluation of the effect of the contract proposal. - View Dependent Claims (17)
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18. A computer readable storage medium storing instructions that, when executed by a computer, cause the computer to perform a method of determining risk and trust for contracts under electronic negotiation by receiving a contract proposal from a negotiation agent;
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analysing the contract proposal using a contract template and from different viewpoints to determine measures of the risk and trust involved;
formulating a response from the measures of risk and trust to send to the negotiation agent; and
returning the response to the negotiation agent.
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19. A messaging protocol for relaying inter-agent communications between negotiating agents to permit sending of a response to a negotiation agent in a method comprising receiving a contract proposal from a negotiation agent;
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analysing the contract proposal using a contract template and from different viewpoints to determine measures of the risk and trust involved;
formulating a response from the measures of risk and trust to send to the negotiation agent; and
returning the response to the negotiation agent.
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Specification