Method of Doing Business Over a Network By Transmission and Retransmission of Digital Information on a Network During Time Slots

• US 20090012876A1
• Filed: 07/10/2008
• Published: 01/08/2009
• Est. Priority Date: 08/29/2000
• Status: Abandoned Application

• Current Assignee: International Business Machines Corporation
• Original Assignee: International Business Machines Corporation
• Inventors: Clarke, Edward Payson JR., Flavin, Robert Alan, Feng, Yuan, Purdy, Geoffrey Hale, Vogl, Norbert George
• Application Number:
  US12/170,861
• Publication Number:
  US 20090012876A1
• Time in Patent Office: Days
• US Class Current: 705/26
• CPC Class Codes: G06Q 10/06 Resources, workflows, human or project management; Enterprise or organisation planning; Enterprise or organisation modelling
• CPC Class Codes: G06Q 30/0633 Lists, e.g. purchase orders, compilation or processing
• CPC Class Codes: H04L 67/62 Establishing a time schedule for servicing the requests

Abstract

The present invention is a method of doing business over a network that: receives a request for transmitting digital information after a start time and before an end time, determines the time required to transmit the digital information based on the number of packets in the information and the network speed, schedules a transmit time for the digital information, and accepts the digital information for transmission only if the time required to transmit is less than or equal to the difference between the transmit time and the end time. Pricing of the transmission can be determined by the priority of transmission, whether the information is transmitted the first time or rescheduled, and whether the user receives an acknowledgment.

Claims

1-19. -19. (canceled)

20. A method comprising:

receiving from a client a request for transmitting digital information from a source address to at least one recipient, the request comprising the source address, an earliest start time, a maximum cost, a priority, and an identification of the at least one recipient, the digital information having a size;

responsive to the request, determining an end time at which the digital information should be completely transmitted to the at least one recipient;

based at least on the size and a network capacity, determining a total time required to transmit the digital information;

based at least on the size, the determined end time, the determined total time, the priority, and the cost, determining whether the digital information can be completely transmitted to the at least one recipient after the earliest start time and prior to the determined end time;

in response to a determination that the digital information cannot be completely transmitted to the at least one recipient after the earliest start time and prior to the determined end time, notifying the client; and

in response to a determination that the digital information can be transmitted to the at least one recipient;

begin transmitting the digital information at a time that is prior to the end time and later than the earliest start time; and

billing the client an amount that does not exceed the maximum cost.

21. The method of claim 20, wherein determining the end time further comprises determining the end time by using the priority and the start time.

22. The method of claim 21, wherein the request further comprises a transmission deadline, and wherein determining the end time further comprises determining the end time by using the transmission deadline.

23. The method as in claim 20, further comprising receiving an acknowledgment of the transmission.

24. The method as in claim 23, wherein billing further comprises producing a bill on receipt of the acknowledgment.

25. The method as in claim 20, where the priority indicates that the digital information is to be transmitted within a time period.

26. The method as in claim 25, where the time period is at least of:

over night, two days and one week.

27. The method as in claim 20, where the priority is a freight priority that requires the digital information to be transmitted within a freight time period with no acknowledgments.

28. The method as in claim 20, wherein the request further includes information from the client regarding how the client can be billed.

29. The method as in claim 28, wherein the information from the client comprises an account identifier and billing further comprises billing the amount to the account identified by the account identifier.