Method for reducing communication data amount in business to business electronic commerce

• US 20030208526A1
• Filed: 01/22/2003
• Published: 11/06/2003
• Est. Priority Date: 04/16/2002
• Status: Active Grant

• Current Assignee: Hitachi, Ltd.
• Original Assignee: Hitachi, Ltd.
• Inventors: Beniyama, Nobuo, Koike, Hiroshi, Arisaka, Takeshi, Omata, Mitsuteru, Imanishi, Junichi
• Granted Patent: US 7,275,057 B2
• Time in Patent Office: Days
• US Class Current: 709/201
• CPC Class Codes: G06Q 30/06 Buying, selling or leasing transactions
• CPC Class Codes: Y10S 707/99936 Pattern matching access
• CPC Class Codes: Y10S 707/99953 Recoverability

Abstract

A Business to Business electronic commerce (BtoB) system includes a message exchanging section, a task processing section and that conforms to BtoB standard specifications, and a difference processing section is added. For an outgoing business document, the difference processing section creates difference information between a past transaction and a new transaction within the range of the BtoB standard message format and sends the message to a business counterpart. For an incoming business document, the difference processing section restores a new transaction based on a past transaction and difference information.

Claims

1. A method for reducing the amount of data to be exchanged in a BtoB system that exchanges documents between at least two computers connected via a communication network, the method comprising the steps of:

at a source computer, retrieving from a transmission history data base a transmitted source document that is similar to the document and has been transmitted to a destination computer;

generating a difference document between the document and the transmitted source document;

transmitting the difference document from the source computer to the destination computer;

at the destination computer, retrieving from a reception history data base a received source document that is a basis of the difference document received from the source computer; and

restoring the document from the received source document and the difference document.

2. A method according to claim 1, further comprising a step of switching between transmitting the difference document and transmitting the document depending on whether the destination computer is capable of processing difference documents.

3. A method according to claim 2, wherein the difference document is transmitted from the source computer to the destination computer only when the destination computer is capable of processing difference documents.

4. A method according to claim 1, further comprising the steps of:

transmitting to the destination computer a transmission message including a transaction identifier indicative of the transmitted source document that is a basis of the difference document; and

retrieving the received source document at the destination computer based on the transaction identifier.

5. A method according to claim 1, wherein, upon generating the difference document, when the document and the transmitted source document have data items that can be abbreviated within a range of a predetermined message format whose values are identical with each other, the data item in the document is abbreviated in the difference document, and upon restoring the document, the data item that has been abbreviated is obtained from the received source document to restore the document.

6. A method according to claim 1, wherein, upon generating the difference document, when the document and the transmitted source document have data items whose values are identical with each other, the data item in the document is replaced with a predetermined value that reduces the data amount and the predetermined value is entered in the difference document, and upon restoring the document, the data item corresponding to the predetermined value is retrieved from the received source document and the predetermined value is replaced with the retrieved data item to restore the document.

7. A method for reducing the amount of data to be exchanged in a BtoB system that exchanges documents between at least two computers connected via a communication network, the method comprising the steps of:

at a source computer, specifying a template for generating a difference with the document based on an attribute of the document;

generating a difference document between the template and the document;

transmitting the difference document from the source computer to a destination computer;

at the destination computer, specifying a template that is a basis of the difference document received from the source computer; and

restoring the document from the template and the difference document.

8. A method according to claim 7, further comprising a step of switching between transmitting the difference document and transmitting the document depending on whether the destination computer is capable of processing difference documents.

9. A method according to claim 8, wherein the difference document is transmitted from the source computer to the destination computer only when the destination computer is capable of processing difference documents.

10. A method according to claim 7, wherein, upon generating the difference document, when the document and the transmitted source document have data items that can be abbreviated within a range of a predetermined message format whose values are identical with each other, the data item in the document to be transmitted is abbreviated in the difference document, and upon restoring the document, the data item that has been abbreviated is obtained from the received source document to restore the document.

11. A method according to claim 7, wherein, upon generating the difference document, when the document and the transmitted source document have data items whose values are identical with each other, the data item in the document is replaced with a predetermined value that reduces the data amount and the predetermined value is entered in the difference document, and upon restoring the document, the data item corresponding to the predetermined value is retrieved from the received source document and the predetermined value is replaced with the retrieved data item to restore the document.

12. A method according to claim 7, wherein the template used in either generating the difference document or restoring the document is exchanged between the at least two computers prior to exchanging documents between the at least two computers.

13. A method according to claim 7, wherein the template is sent to the destination computer, and the templates is used for generating difference documents and restoring documents until a new template is sent to the destination computer.

14. A method according to claim 7, wherein the template is added to a transmission message, the transmission message is sent to the destination computer, and the templates is used for generating difference documents and restoring documents until a new template is sent to the destination computer.

15. A method according to claim 7, wherein the template that is a basis of the difference document received from the source computer is retrieved from among templates corresponding to the source computer in a template management data base.

16. A method according to claim 7, wherein the template that is a basis of the difference document received from the source computer is retrieved from among templates corresponding to the source computer and business in a template management data base.

17. A method according to claim 7, wherein the template that is a basis of the difference document received from the source computer is retrieved from among templates corresponding to the source computer in a template management data base, which are similar to the document in transaction contents.

18. A method according to claim 7, wherein an identifier for specifying the template is designated in a user'"'"'s extension field in a predetermined message format, and the identifier is used to specify the template that is a basis of the difference document received from the source computer.

19. A method according to claim 7, wherein an identifier for specifying the template is designated in the difference document, and the identifier is used to specify the template that is a basis of the difference document received from the source computer.

20. A method for reducing the amount of data to be exchanged in a BtoB system that exchanges documents between at least two computers connected via a communication network, the method comprising the steps of:

retrieving from a transmission history data base a transmitted source document that is similar to a document to be transmitted from a source computer to a destination computer, and that has been transmitted to the destination computer;

generating a difference document between the document and the transmitted source document;

transmitting the difference document to the destination computer.

21. A method according to claim 20, further comprising the steps of:

receiving the difference document from the source computer;

retrieving from a reception history data base a received source document that is a basis of the difference document received from the source computer; and

restoring the document from the received source document and the difference document.

22. A method for reducing the amount of data to be exchanged in a BtoB system that exchanges documents between at least two computers connected via a communication network, the method comprising the steps of:

specifying a template for generating a difference with a document to be sent from a source computer to a destination computer based on an attribute of the document;

generating a difference document between the template and the document; and

transmitting the difference document to a destination computer.

23. A method according to claim 22, further comprising the steps of:

receiving the difference document from the source computer;

specifying a template that is a basis of the difference document received from the source computer; and

restoring the document from the template and the difference document.