Methods and systems for managing offers and requests in a network

• US 20040230676A1
• Filed: 11/20/2003
• Published: 11/18/2004
• Est. Priority Date: 11/20/2002
• Status: Active Grant

• Current Assignee: Fiver LLC
• Original Assignee: Radar Networks Incorporated (EVRI Incorporated)
• Inventors: Spivack, Nova, Thorisson, Kristinn R.
• Granted Patent: US 7,584,208 B2
• Time in Patent Office: Days
• US Class Current: 709/223
• CPC Class Codes: G06F 16/80 of semi-structured data, e.g. markup language structured data such as SGML, XML or HTML content-based retrieval of web data G06F16/95
• CPC Class Codes: G06Q 10/087 Inventory or stock management, e.g. order filling, procurement or balancing against orders
• CPC Class Codes: G06Q 30/0222 During e-commerce, i.e. online transactions
• CPC Class Codes: Y10S 707/955 Object-oriented
• CPC Class Codes: Y10S 707/99944 Object-oriented database structure

Abstract

A knowledge network and semcards enabling intelligent matching of offers and requests, involving all types of information and knowledge, including information such as classified ads, data about products and services, or knowledge, expertise, ideas, suggestions, opinions, and other forms of tacit knowledge is described. The invention is capable of intelligent matching of offers and requests, involving all types of knowledge: information, ideas, suggestions, opinions, products, services, jobs, events, people, skills, etc, using semcards and semcard-like structures, creating a bi-directional marketplace on the Internet, desktop or intranet. The invention enables parties to search and do marketing in the same way, in the same environment.

A semcard can be designated as an offer or a request. When the semcard has been specified to the user'"'"'s satisfaction it can be test-posted. Using semantic routing, semcards that represent offers, requests, and queries, can be routed semantically between nodes on the network. The routing profile describes salient features of the semcard, as deemed necessary for supporting efficient routing of semcards. Collections of semcards can also be matched or compared in a knowledge network. Users can also create new semcard templates or extend the ontology, and share these extensions with other users in the network.

In another aspect of the invention, the semcard management application provides statistics on phenomena such as supply and demand trends for particular types of offers, requests and semcards, number of users with a particular interest profiles, number of potential matches for particular advertisements, and distribution of the user population along multiple dimensions.

Claims

1. A method of matching an offer semantic object and a request semantic object, the method comprising:

creating an offer semantic object and a request semantic object by completing semantic object templates; and

storing specific data of a request in the request semantic object and specific data of an offer in the offer semantic object;

wherein each semantic object is routed in a network and contains policies that determine how each semantic object should be matched.