System and Method for Grouping and Selling Products or Services

• US 20060287897A1
• Filed: 06/19/2006
• Published: 12/21/2006
• Est. Priority Date: 03/01/2000
• Status: Active Grant

• Current Assignee: TVL LP (Sabre Corp.)
• Original Assignee: Site59 Incorporated
• Inventors: Krymm, Alexander R., Sobalvarro, Patrick G., Weber, Tracey D.
• Granted Patent: US 7,885,838 B2
• Time in Patent Office: Days
• US Class Current: 705/5
• CPC Class Codes: G06Q 10/02 Reservations, e.g. for tickets, services or events
• CPC Class Codes: G06Q 10/025 Coordination of plural reservations, e.g. plural trip segments, transportation combined with accommodation
• CPC Class Codes: G06Q 30/06 Buying, selling or leasing transactions
• CPC Class Codes: G06Q 30/0641 Shopping interfaces
• CPC Class Codes: G06Q 40/00 Finance; Insurance; Tax strategies; Processing of corporate or income taxes

Abstract

A system and method for grouping and selling products or services using a computer system, potentially connected to a network. The computer system includes a computer with multiple terminals, potentially instantiated as a server computer or computers and distributed client computers. The computer system presents a sales interface on some terminals. The sales interface shows products or services and groups of products and/or services that are for sale. The computer system presents a back end interface on some terminals, which can be used to enter new products, services and groupings of products and/or services to be offered for sale on the sales interface. Descriptions of the products or service offerings are entered into the computer system either by data entry operators using the back end interface or by a program reading product or service descriptions from external computer systems. The method groups these products or services according to an affinity algorithm. The groupings may then potentially be reviewed and approved or selected by human operators using the back end interface before being offered for sale on the sales interface. One advantageous application is the dynamic packaging of perishable items such as travel goods and services (e.g., airline tickets, rental cars, hotel rooms, entertainment opportunities, etc.).

Claims

1. A method of offering at least one package over a decentralized computer network to a consumer using a web browsing appliance, wherein each package includes at least one travel component, and wherein the method comprises:

(a) storing descriptions of available travel components in a database;

(b) storing a plurality of travel package templates in a database;

(c) receiving a request for a package from a consumer;

thereafter

(d) dynamically generating at least one travel package based on the consumer request, at least one of the plurality of travel package templates, and at least one available travel component description; and

(e) offering the at least one generated travel package to the consumer by transmitting a description of the generated travel package over the decentralized computer network to the consumer'"'"'s web browsing appliance.

2. The method of claim 1 further comprising performing a purchasing transaction to purchase at least one of the generated travel packages.

3. The method of claim 1 further including using a screen-scraping technique to obtain the available travel component descriptions.

4. The method of claim 1 wherein the travel component description includes an affinity space coordinate.

5. The method of claim 1 wherein each travel package template includes at least one mandatory element schema having an associated affinity space description.

6. The method of claim 1 wherein the generating step includes comparing, with a computer, an affinity space coordinate for each of the travel components with a affinity space description associated with the selected package templates.

7. The method of claim 1 wherein the available travel components each expire within a given time period.

8. The method of claim 1 wherein the dynamically generating step occurs without consumer interaction.

9. A computer system for offering at least one package over a decentralized computer network to a consumer using a web browsing appliance, wherein each package includes at least one travel component, and wherein the computer system comprises:

a database that stores descriptions of available travel components and a plurality of travel package templates;

a front end that receives a request for a package from a consumer; and

a back end that thereafter dynamically generates at least one travel package based on the consumer request, at least one of the plurality of travel package templates, and at least one available travel component description, and offers the generated travel package to the consumer by transmitting a description of the generated travel package over the decentralized computer network to the consumer'"'"'s web browsing appliance.

10. The computer system of claim 9 wherein the back end is adapted to dynamically generate at least one travel package without consumer interaction.

11-14. -14. (canceled)

15. A method for building packages of components and offering said packages for sale over a data communications network, the method comprising:

storing descriptions of available components within a database;

providing a plurality of package templates stored in a database;

receiving a request for a package from a consumer, and thereafter dynamically generating at least one package based at least in part on the consumer request, at least one of the plurality of package templates, and at least one available component description; and

offering the at least one generated package for sale to a consumer over the data communications network.

16. The method of claim 15 wherein each package template describes a respective travel package, and the components comprise travel components.

17. The method of claim 15 wherein the components describe at least one of attributes and qualities.

18. The method of claim 15 wherein the components describe an affinity space coordinate.

19. The method of claim 15 wherein each package template includes at least one mandatory component schema and at least one optional component schema.

20. The method of claim 15 wherein each package template further includes an affinity space subset description.

21. The method of claim 15 further comprising requiring a human to approve the generated package before offering the generated package for sale.

22. The method of claim 15 further including confirming availability of the generated package at a time of consumer selection thereof before completing a sales transaction.

23. The method of claim 15 wherein the offering step comprises offering the at least one generated package for sale via a web-based interface.

24. The method of claim 15 wherein the providing step comprises the step of a human creating the plurality of package templates, each package template describing a respective package of components.

25-69. -69. (canceled)