Dynamic agent with embedded web server and mark-up language support for e-commerce automation

• US 20050210456A1
• Filed: 04/11/2005
• Published: 09/22/2005
• Est. Priority Date: 03/12/2001
• Status: Active Grant

• Current Assignee: Hewlett Packard Enterprise Development LP (Hewlett-Packard Enterprise Company)
• Original Assignee: Hewlett-Packard Development Company, L.P. (HP Inc.)
• Inventors: Hsu, Meichun, Chen, Qiming, Dayal, Umeshwar
• Granted Patent: US 7,483,940 B2
• Time in Patent Office: Days
• US Class Current: 717/136
• CPC Class Codes: G06Q 30/06 Buying, selling or leasing transactions

Abstract

An agent computer program for use in an automated electronic commerce infrastructure. A client-agent communication mechanism for enabling communication between an agent computer program and at least one client computer process is provided. The client-agent communication mechanism includes a web server embedded in the agent computer program that utilizes a predetermined Internet communication protocol for communication between the agent computer program and the client computer process. An inter-agent communication mechanism is provided for enabling the agent computer program to communicate with other agents. The inter-agent communication mechanism employs documents written in a predetermined markup language for communication.

Claims

1. A method of communicating between at least two dynamic agent computer programs comprising the steps of:

a) receiving a message;

b) accessing a document type description (DTD) of the message and decoding the message by using the DTD;

c) determining an interpreter associated with the message;

d) determining whether the currently loaded interpreter in the agent computer program matches the interpreter required for the current message;

e) if no, dynamically load the interpreter needed to interpret the current message; and

f) the loaded interpreter using an associated parser to translate the contents of the message, into executable machine code.

2. The method of claim 1 wherein executable machine code comprises a tree of Java objects that perform the program operations and functions.

3. The method of claim 1 wherein executable machine code performs the requested action and sends any requested information to the requesting agent via a return message.

4. The method of claim 1 wherein the method is utilized by dynamic agent computer programs in an automated electronic commerce infrastructure.

5. A method implemented on a dynamically configurable agent, comprising:

accessing a document type description (DTD) of a received message and decoding the message using the DTD;

determining whether a current interpreter in an agent computer program matches an interpreter required for the received message;

if the current interpreter does not match the required interpreter, loading the required interpreter to interpret the received message; and

the loaded interpreter using an associated parser to automatically generate an executable program to run on said dynamically configurable agent.

6. The method of claim 5 wherein the DTD specifies data structures that can occur in the message and an order of the data structures.

7. A dynamic agent, comprising:

an ontology switching module that causes document type descriptions (DTDs) and corresponding interpreters to be exchanged with another agent to implement different communication languages between the agents for different problem domains;

wherein each DTD comprises a template by which a message transmitted between agents can be decoded.

8. The dynamic agent of claim 7 wherein each message includes an interpreter required to interpret the message.

9. The dynamic agent of claim 8 wherein said dynamic agent automatically loads a different interpreter from an interpreter currently loaded in order to process a received message.

10. The dynamic agent of claim 7 wherein the loaded interpreter uses an associated parser to translate contents of the message into executable code.

11. The dynamic agent of claim 10 wherein the dynamic agent executes said executable code.

12. A system, comprising:

a plurality of agents, each agent exchanging messages with at least one other agent according to a dynamically selectable agent communication language;

wherein each agent is capable of receiving a message from another agent that causes the receiving agent to change its agent communication language in order to successfully decode and interpret said message.

13. The system of claim 12 wherein the receiving agent generates machine executable code based on a dynamically selectable agent communication language and a message received from other agent.

14. The system of claim 12 wherein each agent communicates with other agents for the business of one domain by employing the agent communication language and interpreter of that domain, and communicates with still other agents for the business of another domain by employing the agent communication language and interpreter of such other domain.